If you value the information
posted here,
and the project of this history website in general,
you may like to consider making a donation
to help reduce our production costs.
It would be greatly appreciated.
Options include:
paying via PayPal which this website uses -
Ed

For a page in Chinese about this website,
click on the image of the junk

Apologies to netsurfers: Temporarily ... This website is now having
its navigation system redesigned. In early 2010, for any navigation question
(depending on which page you landed on via a search engine if you did not
arrive to this page via the index page), go first to the sitemap. The sitemap presents a complete and hyperlinked
list of files comprising the website in alphabetical order - Editor

Future work and problem people

This file is for snippets only by way of reference to individuals,
situations,
members of half-identified networks which Ken Cozens, Dan Byrnes, or any of their e-mailers wish to
follow-up
in future. With luck, names noted below may one day become subject of new files on
the Merchants Networks Project website. Names are presented chronologically where possible.

E-mailers can feel free to let the webmaster know of their research
interests
so an item can be placed here in due course. The most problematical names will be rendered in bold type

The producers of this website, Dan Byrnes and Ken Cozens, are currently
co-writing
a book. After recent discussions, a decision has been made to one day rotate some
early
versions of some chapters of the book on this website. As might be guessed,
the
book is mostly about Merchant Networks. The chapters will be footnoted
in the usual way. ... On merchant and financier-names of the period of the American
Revolution, re US history and wider-world history generally ... as mentioned in many
contexts,
with an aim here, if possible, of expanding the usually-given lists in a
useful way (1770-1790) (-Ed)

Who was British opium trader of the 1770s, Richard Griffith?

Who was British opium trader of the 1770s, Richard Griffith? Was he as below? Prakash p. 69 (See Om Prakash, ‘Opium Monopoly In India and Indonesia in the Eighteenth Century’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 24, 1, 1987., pp. 65-66) suggests that the true beginnings of the EICo Bengal opium monopoly can be traced at September 1775, when the opium contract for the area about Babar, Bengal, India was awarded to one Richard Griffith, who locked up access to opium for his own agents. However, by 2016 I have found reason to distrust the genealogies given on the Internet for Richard Griffith (whose forebears were from Dublin, Ireland via Wales in earlier days) as it is not clear if he was the son named Richard Griffith (1752-1820 an East India Co accountant who became wealthy and later an Irish MP of note?) or the wandering husband (named Richard Griffith) of the otherwise better-known Anglo-Irish writer, Elizabeth Griffith (1727-1793), whose career is given via many websites by 2016. This Elizabeth Griffith was daughter of Dublin theatre manager Thomas Griffith (died 1744, of a Welsh background) and Jane Foxcroft; one view is that Elizabeth had married a cousin in 1751 but so far this is not provable. Prakash, pp. 70-71, says the EICo's direct involvement in opium helped stem the drain of specie from India to China, so that finally, Indian opium and cotton became the main medium of payment for Chinese tea. Further, the opium trade became the principal vehicle for transmission home of profits earned from India, as proceeds from the China sales of opium at the disposal of EICo factors in Canton became Bills payable in London. Prakash's remarks generally are consistent with those of Chung. (Tan Chung, ‘The Britain-China-India trade triangle, 1771-1840’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. XI, No. 4, Dec. 1974., pp. 411-431.) (some words missing as this field will not take many words). [Question posted On Linked-In on 27-7-2016, little response so far]

Australia invaded or not?

What word(s) best describe Britain's 1788 colony at Sydney, Australia? Controversy has once again broken out in Australia as a university history dept. in Sydney changes its style guide regarding words to use for describing the British appearance at Sydney by 26 January 1788. What word(s) best describe what happened – invasion (capture of sovereignty by military means), imperialistic exercise in colonisation, exercise in penal colonisation (my own current choice arising from historian Eris O'Brien, 1937). Occupation, annexation, settlement (by Europeans who apply a doctrine of terra nullius which blinds them to the existence of the indigenous occupants). Or, settlement by Europeans who slowly and deliberately displace the long-term indigenous inhabitants. What word(s) best describe what took place, by 1788 standards, by today's standards? [Question lodged on Linked-In by late April 2016, little response]

Convict contractors to Australia

Follows a list of February 2012 of convict contractors of the Australian run that we know least about, 1800-1865. Convict contractors being merchants who took contracts with the British government to transport convicts to an Australian port. Where the term ¨no wife¨ means we can find no wife, no family members, or no parents for a given name, and possibly the names of few of their usual business associates; two implications are that the names have never been made subjects of family history, at least not yet on the Internet, or made subject of work by historians. The series is most reliable for names noted to 1829, when Thomas Shelton the official contract-maker died (see Net articles by Dan Byrnes on Shelton´s Contracts). Shelton was followed by two other contract-makers, his nephew John Clark, who was followed by an official named Peake. However, for part of the series to 1829, many contracts were taken ¨in bulk¨ by Joseph Lachlan, who is also little known, on behalf of shipping managers with whom he was in contact, and it is quite possible that Lachlan dealt with merchant names still unknown or little-known. The research situation on such merchant names is thus quite unsatisfactory.

The lesser-known names include (and many by occupation were shipbrokers, many living and working in London): William Abercrombie. Aikin. James Allen. James Atty and Co. (no wife); Buckle, Buckle, Bagster and Buchanan being John William Buckle of Hither Green London (wife known but not helpfully so), possibly Henry Mole Bagster (no wife) and possibly one Walter Buchanan (wife known); Thomas Barrick; John Barry of Whitby (no wife, the Barry genealogy available on the Net is quite confusing); John Bell Robertson (no wife); Birch and Ward. John Blacket (no wife); Henry Blanshard. Robert Carter of emigration agents Carter and Bonus (more is known of John Bonus and descendants). Robert Charnock (no wife); William Christopher. James Duncan of Blackheath. J. R. Edridge. George Faith. G. Forsyth. Gibbon and Co; John Goodson; Robert Granger. Henry Green of the Greens who were owners of docks at Blackwall; Alexander Greig (no wife) or, Alexander Mount Greig (no wife); Thomas Hall. William Hamilton. Captain Thomas Haviside. Hibberson (no wife); James Hill. Joseph Horsley. Hovelds. R. L. Hunter. London whaler Thomas or Yves Hurry (no wife); convict ships Captain Magnus I Johnson (maybe later of Newport Isle of Wight, wife name is known but little else); William Hay Leith (later with Forbes and Forbes and Co. of London to about 1853) Martin Lindsay. George Longster (no wife), John Lubbock (wife known); C. M. Lughrue. Parents of John Henry Luscombe. James McTaggart (no wife); whaler William Mellish (active 1790s, no wife); Alexander John Milne (no wife); Samuel Moates (wife known but not helpfully); John Morley (no wife); Richard Mount. W. L. Oldfield. William Parker. Joseph Pinsent (no wife); W. L. Pope. Charles Rait (no wife); Joshua Reeve. Thomas Robson. John Short. Kennard Smith. Stuart and Co; Henry Taylor (no wife); Tayte. W. H. Tiplady. Samuel Tomkins. Alexander Towers (no wife; Giles Wade. wharfinger Thomas Ward (?? and no wife); Captain Thackeray Wetherell. Arthur Oates Wilkinson (no wife but had a stockbroker son) and James Atty; William Wilkinson. Christopher Willoughby an associate of Samuel Enderby Jnr. John Wilsone (?).

Better-known convict contractor names include: Robert Brooks, Aaron Chapman, Abel Chapman, Abel II Chapman (Chapman being a name from Whitby); Devitt and Moore; Duncan Dunbar II; Samuel Enderby Snr of Blackheath (died 1797 plus the Larkins family of Blackheath, half-known); James Laing; John Henry Luscombe (wife known); George Lyall (wife known); James Mangles (much is known of the Mangles); John Prinsep but not his partners Lambert and Saunders; Samuel Francis Somes (wife known. (Ends list updated per Dan Byrnes Armidale April 2012)

Follows an updated list of May 2011 of problem people for current research efforts. Just one of the problems to be noted with such names, given here alphabetically, not chronologically (sorry if that is confusing), is that they are often given in various books commonly cited in economic history, even in classic old books, but nothing new or additional can be found on them. Most of these problem names are those of English or British-colonial merchants, Despite maybe years of Internet development since 1996, given that many of the said books of economic history would already have been published by 1996. What we do not know, and cannot assess, is whether ignorance of these names will interfere with a discussion that seems otherwise to be of reasonable quality. It remains difficult to know if these names can be seen as important or not? Some problem names are those of Lord Mayors of London, though they are not given in this listing.
... Names Arkwright as connected with New Zealand Co (NZCo). Parents of British army General Charles Auriol, more on the name Auriol generally. JP of England Alfred Backhouse 1822-1888 married to Rachel Barclay. Slaver investor John Banckes about 1678. John Barkworth merchant of Hull active say 1810-1815 (an emailer has sent data on this name). Newcastle merchant Joseph Barnes. Sir Hercules Beckwith married to Miss Ferrers. Director of Bank of Bengal, William Berners. British shipbuilders Bilbe. Dirk Birch-Reynardson and Mary Bulteel. Thomas Bird of Barton and wife Elizabeth Bird. Before 1700 Royal Africa Co. (RAC) investor James Blake. Garnham Blaxcell 1778-1817 died Batavia. Barrister Richard Bligh 1785-1817. Sydney wool dealer about 1846, W. C. Botts. An East India Co. (EICo) name of Madras, James Dewar Bourdillon. London firm Buckle, Buckle, Bagster and Buchanan plus maybe-associated name Boyd (John William Buckle of Hither Green?). Boyd Brothers of the Australia trade. MP Robert Edward Boyle active 1844 married to Robarts. Africa Co. name of 1696 John Braithwaite. James Brander and Mary Mangles. Hamburg merchants Braumsters. EICo name about 1788 William Broderick. MP and Russia merchant John Brogden d.1800. RAC name died 1712 John Brookes of London. Whaler Thomas Brown. Assam tea producer Charles Alexander Bruce died 1871. Governor of Bank of England Cornelius Buller died 1849. Wife of Charles Rousseau Burney. EICo director Joseph Burnley. Charles James Busk of Blackheath Kent and Cape Town. Various of the name Calthorpe. Anthony Calvert of the 1790s London firm Camden, Calvert and King. The latest information (July 2011) is that Calvert was so admired by his friends/relatives that several named their sons Anthony Calvert. This involved names such as Anthony Calvert King, Anthony Calvert Hutton, Anthony Calvert Law and Calvert Law, and Anthony Calvert Morton. Amazingly, none of those names are available via netsurfing, indicating that Calvert, his associates and families surrounding him are indeed a tough set of research problems. Calvert seems to have died at his house at Broadstairs, Isle of Thanet, but nor is anything from websites concerned with Broadstairs any assistance. It is now clear that Calvert never married. Horace Walter Calverley born 1863. Harriet Diana Calvert active 1844. Investor in Australian Agricultural Co. (AACo) John Campbell (1778-1840) of London. Campbell of Jamaica married to Rebecca Launce. London barrister Richard Capper. Major-General Sir Burgess Carnac. MP General John Carnac died 1800. MP George Caulfield married to Taverner. EICo name Sir Thomas Chambers active 1664. London merchant about 1650 Robert Charlton. Major-General Sir Harry Chester married to Harriet Clinton. London banker Richard Child about 1610. London alderman and EICo name Sir George Clarke about 1642. Thomas Clarke nd, slave factor at Oprah, West Africa. Barbados planter(s) about 1674 named Clements. Parents of Colonel John Clerk died 1919. Genealogy surname Coldstream. About 1792 an India-China free trader named Colt. Sir Robert Cordell Baronet died 1680. Cowper married to Dorothy Pepys. Robert Cowper and Elizabeth Buxton. General Spencer Cowper. Alexander Templar Cox. Rt. Hon. James Craggs. John Stephens Creed. London merchant (probably) Colin Currie active 1770 and sasme for one David and for Isaac Currie of New Broad Street. Sir D. Currie (?). Major-General Thomas Dallas KCB. Lane Son and Fraser of London bankrupted 1792-1793, presumably merchant bankers. Larkins of Blackheath London (across three generations), a firm with EICo connections. James Mather a whaling investor of London in the 1790s. More on the Twinings tea family seen as bankers.

Below are other lists of problem people.

Britain during the Napoleonic Wars

The following alphabetical list of merchant names who contracted to the British government to provide good and services to the British army and navy during the Napoleonic Wars is drawn from a variety of sources, but mostly from Roger Knight and Martin Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, 1793-1815: War, the British Navy and the Contractor State. Woodbridge, Suffolk, The Boydell press, 2010. ISBN 978 1843835649. 262pp. And from an associated online database, Sustaining the Empire database, Contracts.

Sustaining the Empire: Contractor List2 updated. Identifiable convict contractors [to Australia] ]are asterisked. Abbott and Treffry (grocers of Plymouth 1812). William Adams (?). Abraham de Horne. James Allen/Allan (?) William Allen. Robert Anderson (?). Thomas Appleton. Robert Ardle/London Flour Company. John Arlot. William Arlot (brothers or relatives?). John Armitage. William Ashby. Smyth Atcheson. Abraham Atkins. John Atkins of 36 Old Jewry in 1794. Atkins, French and Co. George Atkinson (?). corn factor Christopher Hale Atkinson (1738-1819). William Atkinson. George Augustin. John Joseph Bacon. James Balfour (1775-1845) of Madras with Joseph Baker, who took over from Basil Cochrane in 1806. James Ball and Co (?). [John] St Barbe and Co/Reeve and Green.*. Stephen Barney and also Thomas Barney (relatives?). Richard Barton. Charles Bell (1805-1869) of Throgmorton St London 1794. Cheese contractor Thomas Bell of 34 Bread St London. Andrew Belcher London merchant 1815. Joseph Benbow. Peter Berthon. Peter Bletchford/Blatchford. William Bignell *. William Birt of Tavistock Street Plymouth 1812. James Blake and Samuel Blake (relatives?). W. H. Bayly. John Bridges. Nicholas Brown. William Brown. Bogle French and Co. (need to be watched). Thomas Bolton (1752-1753-1834) married to a relative of Lord Nelson. Walter Borrows of 25 Mincing Lane in 1794. Engineer Sir Marc Isambard Brunel. James Brymer (and Andrew Belcher). John Bunn. Robert Burge. Daniel Callaghan Jnr. Gerald Callaghan. Richard Cathery maybe related to Desbrow Cathery. Carpenter and Gill. Matthew Chambers. William Champion. William Clancy (presumably in Ireland). Richard Henry Clarke. Channon and Burt. Basil Cochrane (East Indies contractor who is uncle of Captain Thomas Cochrane, brother of John, went to Madras as a junior writer for EICo.). UK barracks Builder Alexander Copland. Gabriel Copland. Richard Cozens. William Cozens, also S. and W. Cozens. William Collier of Southside Street Plymouth Dock in 1812 maybe related to John Collier same address. Nicholas Crimp and Nicholas Crimp Jnr. Nicholas Cummins and/or Cummins and Son. N. and M. Cummins. Edward Curling. George Curling. Robert Curling. Thomas Curling. William Curling. Jacob Curtis. Arthur Cuthbert. Late notes of July 2008 on Davison and Newman, to be regarded as contractors of the Napoleonic War era. Henrique Teixeira de Sampaio in Portugal. Alexander Donaldson maybe of Jamaica with George Glenny of London partnerships dissolved by 1804 (see separately Alexander Glennie). Christopher Dunkin of London. Maybe Thames lighterman John Dunkin. John Elill. Edward Ellice. John Fell London corn and meal factor, 11 St Mary Overy´s Dock 1794. French, Atkins and ?, or French and Co. of 3 Copthall Court, Throgmorton Street 1794 plus other names French. Joseph Flight of London (bisket meal). Charles Flower (London Lord Mayor) and Jordaine and other names Flower. Sir William Fletcher. James Bogle-French. John Garland and Co. Joshua Gibbons. Richard Ginger. James Godwin. Godwin and Co. John Gray. John Green and Sons. Madras contractor William Hart. Harrison and Co. William Harrison. Thomas Hearn baker of Isle of Wight. David Heatley. Richard Hingston. Thomas Hubbert and Rowcroft 1794 London shipbrokers, Sailmakers and Wharfingers of 121 Bishopsgate Within. John and/or Isaac Jacob. Zephaniah Job (based at Polperro) who often traded with Jonathan Binns of Looe corn merchant or maltser and also dealt with Robert Grigg of Looe a corn merchant and see also Job and [Robert] Grigg of Polperro; Job also dealt with grain trader Giles Welsford of French Lane Plymouth in 1812. Andrew Jordaine and Co of London. Andrew Jordaine and Richard Shaw partners since 1768, contractors during American War of Independence/ Jordaine and Shaw. Edward Jukes. Kellaway being Henry, James Jnr., Thomas Kellaway. William King. John Kingdom. Edward Knapp Jnr. Edward and Joshua Knight. John Lance of Lance and Auber Meal and Corn factors at 3 Gould Square Crutched Friars in 1794 and also a C. Lance. Richard Lake. Thomas Larkin (sic not Larkins). McIntosh Lachlan. Alexander Learmouth of Learmouth and Lindsay merchants of 30 Nicholas Lane London 1794. Lyons being Dennis, James Jnr and Dennis Jnr Lyons. William Matthews. Henry Marsh. Thomas Marsh. Peter Mellish and W. Smith, supply contractors during American War and later agents for Victualling Board. William Mellish with William Smith. Charles and Robert Milward London corn dealers of 123 St John´s Street Smithfield of 1794 and maybe John Milward. Mant and Co. Samuel Paget. Thomas Pinkerton. Christopher Potter. Thomas Neave. William Nutt. John Phillips. Thomas Phillips. George Quested. William Randall. Joshua Reeve? Reeve and Green of London at 30 Canterbury Square Southwark of 1794*. William Richardson. George Robson at Plymouth. Ridley Robson. Nathan Meyer Rothschild supplied specie to Wellington´s troops. Thomas Rowcroft ship and insurance broker of London at 121 Bishopsgate Within of 1794 (maybe named in writings by Frost?). Possibly a different Thomas Rowcroft of London. James Russell. Nicholas Salmon. Thomas Salmon. James Saunders. Claude Scott London a corn factor at 17 Fenchurch Street 1794, engaged by government to buy wheat from abroad. Scott Idle and Co., London Wine and Brandy merchants of 381 Strand 1794. Benjamin Shaw. Christopher Shaw. Tallow merchant Richard Shaw. Thomas Shepherd. Isaac Solly. [John] St Barbe and Green ships husbands and insurance brokers at 33 Seething Lane by 1794*. Many names Smith. D. O. Sullivan. Alexander Thomson and Grant (1815, Thomson in London, Grant in Jamaica, maybe a man surnamed Alexander?). John Thomson Jnr of Leith. Navy contractor Alexander Tullock. Thomas Weston. Various names Westlake. Archibald Windeyer 1815 Biscuit Maker maybe of Chatham. Richard Windeyer. George Young. Isaac Young.

From 1680++

1625: Sir John Dutton Colt - Preceding the emigrant to America John Colt (1625-1730) married to first wife Mary Finch, of a West England background.

1687: Thomas Carroll Jnr married to Rebecca Fisher with daughter Mary Carroll (1687-1728) married to John III Sturgis (died 1758)

A ship in serious trouble: American scrimshaw art. As
used as a
logo on the business card of Scrimshaw Gallery Ltd., Pier 39, San
Francisco.

This file first placed on the Net on 25 July 2006

(From Pieter Dickson)

Dear Merchants Networks,
Many thanks for copy of the Campbell genealogy. The whole concept of
this web site is a tremendous lift and the best news of the year; I've
already had a note from a current correspondent (a Samuels, originally
from Lucea, now living in USA) who has already hit the site and I've no
doubt it will grow for years. As to my own research interests, please
see below ...

Aim: to glean a sight, from within, of their activities in Jamaica
and of what turned their lives "beyond the seas"– kinship
connections, business engagements, external events.

Why? A G-G-G-G-grandson of John Dickson & Ann Crooks of Jamaica
thinks that the pre-eminence given to the sugar economy and its movers
veils much detail that is revealing and valuable in the record. There
is no doubt that speculation surrounding sugar drew many to Jamaica,
but their descendants went beyond that first horizon, adapted and
survived as a result. The interest is in Daniel Defoe's "middling
sort", generally sober, industrious, diligent and god-fearing in their
affairs but not without the usual sprinkling of scoundrels.
All the best (on 26-7-2006), Pieter Dickson

1708: Thomas Green of Witham Co, Boston married to Anne Calef (born 1708) of Boston daughter of clothier Robert Calef (1674-1722) and Margaret Barton.

Sir Stephen Evance (1654/1655-1712 a suicide), financier to government, goldsmith, Governor of Hudson's Bay Company, and had many business partners. Confusions still exist on the Internet as to whether he was married (to Hester Goodyer?), and about the genealogy of the husband (Sir Caesar Child) of the daughter of Stephen's brother, John Evance, Hester Evance.

1720: South Carolina: Born about 1720, Mary Clapp married to David Deas born about 1720. The entire Deas line in South Carolina needs work to beyond 1800. Similar for Lavinia Randolph Deas (1836-1898) who married Randolph Fitzhugh Mason.

Active 1725: London tobacco trader Benjamin Bradley.

Circa 1730: England, John Flowerdewe (no dates, probably a trader in American tobacco) married to Mary Scott, and had son a tobacco merchant Thomas Flowerdewe (no dates).

From 1750

Dan Byrnes is seeking more information on the family history of his
own cousins in Australia named D'Elboux, a name from Marseilles, France,
emigrating after the 1750s to England, then to Brazil, and Australia. Some
descendants
also live in New Zealand. Family legend for the D'Elboux families in Australia, more than any facts,
indicate that one Francois Louis D'Elboux worked as a cook in the later 1700s
in the household of "Lady F. Leveson-Gower" - all that has been written down,
as far as is known at present. This was perhaps (simply a guess) Frances Boscawen, who had a family of
seven
or so children with Hon. John Leveson-Gower, (1740-1792), MP and Lord
Admiralty. Dan Byrnes and relatives would appreciate any extra information on
this Leveson-Gower family, more so as a Lord Admiralty might have been
involved. Thanks, Dan Byrnes, July 2006.

1753: Forebears of Margaret Galbraith born 1753 who married Lloyd's underwriter and whaling investor John St Barbe of Blackheath (1741/1742-1816).

Born 1753: American merchant Jacob Ammidon.

1759: Re Townsend White the father of Anna White (born 1759) who married to New York merchant William Constable (1752-1803), this White family generally.

Circa 1760

More to come

Circa 1761

More to come

Circa 1762

More to come

Circa 1763

1763: John Barnes, British governor for Sengeal 1763-1766, an Africa merchant into the 1780s.

Circa 1764

1764: John Carr (1764-1817) of County Durham Engand married to Hannah Ellison (1780-1846).

Circa 1765

More to come

Circa 1766

More to come

Circa 1767

1767 Virginia: Frances Burwell (1767-1839) married to Wlliam Nelson.

Active 1767, Gerard Williams Beekman with daughter Elizabeth born 1767 married to Peter William Livingston of the New York Livingstons.

Circa 1768

Active 1768: New England merchant John Amory.

Circa 1769

More to come

Circa 1770

Active circa 1770: London merchant William Backhouse married to Eleanor St Barbe, daughter of Massachusetts merchant George St Barbe and Elizabeth Wyatt.

Circa 1771

Circa 1772

1772: Based in London/Britain, Francis Baring, Bird, Alexander Fordyce
(speculator in East India stocks): June 1772, a financial bubble burst in June 1772 when a London Scot merchant
Alexander Fordyce, whose operations were mostly financial, lost a fortune in
speculating on EICO shares, and absconded, bringing down his merchant house
Fordyce Grant and Co, and his bank, Neale, James, Fordyce and Down. A panic
ensued and many Scottish firms in London

1772 - . Colonial merchants objecting to Britain's stance were John Hancock, Thomas Wharton and
John Dickinson of Philadelphia.

1772 - in 1772 John Hancock deals with Hayley and Hopkins in London. in
Philadelphia,
Charles Wharton imports Dutch tea using New York firms Ten Eyck and Seaman,
John and Cornelius Sebring and John Vanderbilt.

1772 - A Philadelphia merchant Gilbert Barkley (and his partner also of
Philadelphia,
John Inglis), wanted EICo to establish warehouses in American towns,
peferably
their towns, to auction tea as was done in England. With an opinion was Thomas
Walpole,
nephew of famous Robert Walpole, a London merchant-banker, who wanted tea
centred
in Philadelphia, he is associated with Benjamin Franklin and the Whartons, other
prominent
Philadelphians in the Vandalia Land Company re Illinois.

1772 - James and Drinker of Philadelphia, . Tea for Philadelphia was jointly
for James and Drinker, Thomas and Isaac Wharton, Jonathan Browne (with a
brother
George in London) and Gilbert Barkley. Quaker merchants of Philadelphia were
Abel James, Henry Drinker (deals with Fred Pigou Jnr in London), Thomas and
Isaac Wharton (plus brother Samuel in London). After the Boston Tea Party,
Whartons
urged their London correspondents to drop James and Drinker and replace them
with William and Morris.

Circa 1773

Upper James River area, Virginia, the 1773-1775 exporters of tobacco from Upper James
included: William Allen, Jerman Baker, Burwell Bassett, Robert Bolling,
Thomas
Bolling, Carter Braxton, William Byrd, Charles Carter, Colonel Edward Carter,
Archibald Cary, Wilson Miles Carey, Rev Wm Coutts, Francis Eppes, Charles
Gilmore,
John Harmar, William Harwood, Henry Henderson, William Lightfoot, Henry and
Edmund Lyne, John Mayo, David Meade, Everard Meade, Richard K. Meade, Joseph
Montfort, Robert Munford, Robert Carter Nicholas, John Pankey, John Paradise,
John Pleasants, Thomas Prosser, Brett Randolph, John Randolph, Richard
Randolph,
Thomas Mann Randolph, William Randolph, Henry Skipworth, James Smith, John
Throgmorton,
Richard Tunstall, Robert Turnbull, Abram Venable, Benjamin Waller, John
Wayles,
Cary Wilkinson. See pp. 100ff of Nagel, Lees of Virginia, Braxton here by
1776
allied with one Benjamin Harrison. By 1775, the top seven tobacco importers in London were William and Robert
Molleson, C. Court and T. Eden, Lyonel Lyde and Co, Dunlop and Wilson, Gale,
Fearon and Co, Wallace, Davidson and Johnson, and various other and unknown
accounting for 44.3 per cent of overall trade. (Jacob Price, p. 180.)

Circa 1773

In 1773, Annapolis merchants James Dick and Anthony Stewart were in debt to
John Buchanan and Sons in London for at least L6775, and declared as
unfounded
a rumour they were in debt for 10,000. (T. Thompson note 26) - See Emory G. Evans, 'Planter Indebtedness and the Coming of the Revolution in
Virginia', William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, Vol. XIX, Oct. 1962.

1773 - May and later, (letter pers comm Pennie Pemberton of 12 Aug, 1990, she has
listed
merchants we did not notice in Labaree, involved in the EICO tea deal for the
North American colonies. Brook Watson of Watson and Rashleigh, Garlick Hill,
London. Joshua Winslow of Boston (late of Nova Scotia), Robarts, Payne and
Roberts,
Kings Arms Yard (was this Robarts later banker partner with Curtis?). At
Charleston,
South Carolina, Andrew Lord and George Ancrum; George Hayley and John
Blackburn;
William Palmer of Devonshire Square; John Nutt, New Broad Street Buildings;
and Roger Smith of South Carolina. Were the South Carolina names associated
with Abel and Macaulay who later lost over 5000 pounds by the American
Revolution? At time of Boston Tea Party, William Palmer of London, in 1773, he sent tea to
Gov
Thomas Hutchinson qv. See Schlesinger on Uprising against the EICo.

Circa 1774

A ship in serious trouble: American scrimshaw art. As
used as a
logo on the business card of Scrimshaw Gallery Ltd., Pier 39, San
Francisco.

October 1774, Russell had been directly involved in the affair of the ship
Peggy
Stewart. (Jacob Price, p. 192 and note 94 and see Papenfuse, In Pursuit Of
Profit),
the Peggy Stewart affair re dispute, see Maryland Gazette 20 October, 1774,
between
Wallace firm, and the tea importers, Williams and Co, both of Annapolis.
After
the stoppage of the John Buchanan ship in 1773, the Annapolis firm of Dick
and
Stewart, owners of the Peggy Stewart, transferred most of their business to
Buchanan. Russell was the rep in London, and he had decided to hide parcels
of tea in Peggy Stewart. As early as 1771, Joshua Johnson in London had
warned
his Annapolis partners Charles Wallace and John Davidson, that Russell and
others
were shipping tea. In 1774, Joshua Johnson warned his partners again re tea
and Russell's moves, and this warning led to destruction of tea via the burning
of the Peggy Stewart. Wallace had an inflammatory role here. In the aftermath
here, Capt Lambert Wickes of the Neptune had once refused to carry tea to
Maryland
sent by the same London merchant supplying the tea to Russell, Amos Hayton,
to the same Annapolis house, Williams and Co.

1774: James Pagan, Sketches Of The History Of Glasgow. Glasgow, 1847. cited
in T. Thompson note 14, and Pagan notes that at least 46 different Glasgow
firms
alone were dealing in the American tobacco trade in 1774.

1774: increase in European prices for American tobacco.

George Washington opposed non-payment of American debts. See Thomson, Upper James
River, p. 407, noting DC never received tobacco from Upper James River area,
the 1773-1775 exporters of tobacco from Upper James included, William Allen,
Jerman Baker, Burwell Bassett, Robert Bolling, Thomas Bolling, Carter
Braxton,
William Byrd, Charles Carter, Colonel Edward Carter, Archibald Cary, Wilson
Miles Carey, Rev Wm Coutts, Francis Eppes, Charles Gilmore, John Harmar,
William
Harwood, Henry Henderson, William Lightfoot, Henry and Edmund Lyne, John
Mayo,
David Meade, Everard Meade, Richard K. Meade, Joseph Montfort, Robert
Munford,
Robert Carter Nicholas, John Pankey, John Paradise, John PLeasants, Thomas
Prosser,
Brett Randolph, John Randolph, Richard Randolph, Thomas Mann Randolph,
William
Randolph, Henry Skipworth, James Smith, John Throgmorton, Richard Tunstall,
Robert Turnbull, Abram Venable, Benjamin Waller, John Wayles, Cary Wilkinson.
(See pp. 100ff of Nagel, Lees of Virginia.) Braxton here by 1776 was allied
with
one Benjamin Harrison of Virginia. (But there about four Benjamins Harrison of Virginia who might have been involved here.)

In London on 18 March 1774 a merchant committee headed by Champion
(Richard,
of Bristol?) and Dickinson, Hayley and Hopkins, Lane Son and Fraser, to
discuss
Boston matters and they offered surety of 16,000 pounds to cool things down,
offer not taken up. Citations: (Labaree, letters between Thomas and Adrian
Hope
to Thomas Hancock, Boston, in 1745-1755, page 268 of Notes). In (page 268),
John Kidd in London writes and vice versa to William Gough of Philadelphia in
October 1754. John Kidd in Philadelphia writes to Rawlinson and Davison in
London
in 1761. There is a John Kidd Letterbook extant. Henry Lloyd in Boston p. 268 writes
to Aaron Lopez of Newport in 22 march, 1756. John Hancock (p. 270 notes)
writes
3 Sep-2 Nov 1767 to George Hayley London and to William Reeve, London. On 10
May 1768 Richard Clarke and Sons London write to London dealer Peter
Contincen
(sic). John Reynell (Reynell and Coates) of Philadelphia (Labaree, p. 271
notes),
writes 25 Aug 1768 to Mildred and Roberts, London, and on 5 Nov 1768 to
Welch,
Wilkinson and Startin of London. Dennys DeBerdt often writes to Thomas
Cushing
of Boston. Labaree (Notes, p. 276) has Alexander Mackay of London writes to James
Bowdoin Boston on 7 April 1770. In London are merchants Robert and Nathaniel
Hude (Huth?) p., 277 of Labaree's notes. Abraham Dupois London writes to
Boston
merchants Samuel and Stephen Salisbury, Sep 1773 (Labaree pp. 278-282 notes note 27 for pp. 68-74 of text) that William Palmer as tea dealer had
objected to Herries' tobacco marketing plan from the start. Labaree (Notes, p. 290) that Brook
Watson London has letter from Benjamin Faneuil of Boston of November 1773 (there is little on Brook Watson's partner, Rashleigh.) Labaree's
notes (p. 301) hae John Norton of London writes to Peyton Randolph US 6 July 1773. See Francis N. Mason, (Ed)., John Norton and Sons, Merchants of London
and Virginia. Richmond, Va, 1937. Richard Champion of Bristol writes to
Willing
and Morris p. 303 of notes on 30 Sep 1774. Labaree (Notes p. 311), Richard
Lechmere
of Boston to Lane, Son and Fraser (LSF), London on 30 May 1774.

December 1774: (Olson, London Mercantile Lobby. pp. 35-36), the
merchant
lobby failed to act quickly in December 1774 when the latest Congress'
non-importation
of British Goods measure reached London, On Dec 19, 1774, the Wilkesite
committee
members, wanted a mass meeting of merchants and other Londoners for 23 Dec,
when they probably wanted to present a pro-America petition, the wealthier
conservatives
being on their holidays in the country. But on the day of the meeting for 23 Dec, a conservatives wing, Blackburn, Barclay and Champion put an advertisement in a
paper,
another meeting for 4 Jan, 1775, so the conservatives finally dominated the
meeting. A middle-wing consisted of Samuel Athawes, John Sargent, Brigden,
Norton,
and Russell, who arranged for a conservative, the respected Lane, to preside,
get supportive letters from outports and prepare a non-Wilkesite petition.

17 October, 1774, Duncan Campbell to Messrs Abraham Lopez and Son, re their favour of
14 June, re a lading of 12 Terces Sugar per the Britannia, the sugar of a mean
quality,
the market is glutted. (See Dickinson
on Falklands Sealing and Pares, Yankees and Creoles, pp. 162ff, re Lopez here.) In
1765 Lopez owed 10,000 pounds to the son of Henry Cruger being Henry Cruger
Jnr, a merchant of Bristol, taking 4-5 years to extinguish it. Lopez built an
even larger debt to Hayley and Hopkins, to whom he transferred his biz via
London,
in 1774 Lopez owed Hayley Hopkins some 12,000 pounds. Lopez dealt also to
West
Indies, owned several ships, one in trade Jamaica to London; eg Lopez to
Cruger
in Bristol, Nov 1770; Pares finds it impossible to quantify any of merchants'
dealings such as those of Lopez re capital formations, etc. George Washington
(Pares, p. 3) visited Barbados in 1751-1752 and commented on planter
indebtedness
there. p. 5 James Reynell a Philadelphia merchant of a later generation
1730-1760
in Pares, Yankees, p. 5.

Circa 1774

1774 - Among the London dealers were Walter Mansell and Co, Arthur
Lee, Thomas
Walpole, the later alderman Brook Watson and his partner Rashleigh, Champion
and Dickinson, Hayley and Hopkins, Lane Son and Fraser, Davidson and Newman,
Abraham Dupois, Pigou and Booth; and John Fothergill. Merchants who may have
been Londoners, or Americans, it is difficult to say, included James Hall,
Hugh Williamson and John D. Whitworth, who with William Rotch later contacted the
Privy Council on 19 Feb, 1774 [Labaree, p. 295, Note 36; pp. 89-95].

Circa 1775

1775++: Based in France, see financier Ferdinand Grand, Vergennes, the French
Farmers-General
as buyers of American tobacco.

1775++: Mostly resident in America: Robert Morris,an early partner of Robert Morris
being Thomas Willing (Morris and Willing, Philadelphia tobacco traders), John
Parish a connection of Robert Morris. William Constable. Alexander Hamilton.
Thomas Jefferson (politician/commentator). John Adams (politician, negotiator
for Dutch loans). Carter Braxton (of Virginia), Daniel Parker, William
Parker,
Benjamin Franklin, Gouvenour Morris. Agents for Hope and Co. of Amsterdam,
John
Holker, Francis Rotch (whaling industry), Matthew Ridley, merchant John
Hancock
of Boston. John Jay (negotiator of Jay Treaty). One-time partners of Robert
Morris were Wallace, Johnson and Muir.

1775 - See Alison Olson, London Mercantile Lobby. p. 26, both
James Russell
and Dennys DeBerdt Jr both signed the extreme October 1775 petition urging
government
to take steps to restore peace with America. ... p. 27, Core of the American
merchants included Edward Athawes, dean of the Virginia tobacco merchants
since
the 1750s, John Norton, Quakers David Barclay and Daniel MIldred, the Marquis
of Rockingham's friend Sir William Baker and his lawyer son, Carolina
merchants
John Nutt (and Nutt a pro-American) and Edward Brigden, New England merchants
Alexr Champion and Thomas Lane, Maryland merchants James Russell and William
Molleson, the Virginia merchant Duncan Campbell, plus traders New York-Penn
being William Neate and Frederick Pigou.

1775: Dallas D. Irvine, 'The Newfoundland Fishery: A French objective in the
War of American Independence', Canadian Historical Review, 13 Sept., 1932.

1775++: Georges Lemaitre, Beaumarchais. New York, 1949.

1775++ See also, Margaret L. Brown, William Bingham, Agent of the Continental
Congress
in Martinique', Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 61, 1937.

In 1775, Lopez, Jarvis, Francis Rotch and one Richard Smith decided to
station
vessels at the Falkland Islands for the duration of Am Rev hostilities.
Whaling
mostly, sealing when possible. There was a danger of starvation on Nantucket
in 1775 due to shipping blockades. (From Dickinson on Falklands sealing), In
Sept
1775 Rotch joined with Leonard Jarvis of Dartmouth, Richard Smith of Boston,
Aaron Lopez of Newport for whaleships, see firms of Champion and Hayley,
Champion and Dickason. See Dickinson on the Falklands re the affair that Mary
Wilkes
had with Rotch after George Hayley died. Mary Wilkes also had liason with (American?) whaler Patrick Jaffrey who remains little known.

in 1775-1776- the British Treasury Board contracted with Anthony Merry,
merchant,
to supply livestock to troops at Boston and New York.

Pre-revolution, 1775, some of the leading Glasgow merchants with influential
connections in American colonies are Alexander Speirs and William
Cunninghame.

1775 - Jacob M. Price, 'The Economic Growth of the Chesapeake and the European
Market, 1697-1775', The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 24, No. 4, 1964.,
pp. 496-516, [note also that nearby that issue, maybe 1963 or 1965 is an
article
on French merchants at Lyon which maybe we should read. on p. 499, Note 3,
Price
writes, "It is virtually impossible to compile a good, long term series
of London tobacco prices." (p. 499), since 1670 the
Chesapeake
tobacco to London was re-exported to markets the Virginians knew little
about.
there were 100 million pounds shipped annually to Britain in 1771-1775, about
85 per cent of which was re-exported. and p. 502, Note 5, Price cites papers
on French Farmers-General, noting that they tend to neglect "commercial and
political-personal factors".

Active 1775: Virginian planter Colonel William Brockenbrough.

Circa 1776

Names relevant to pre-revolutionary North America

Gilbert Barkley (sometimes given as Barclay). A tea dealer associated with the tea cargos ruined by the Boston Tea Party. (Died 1799 in England.)

Re George Chalmers - 1776 - Re Virgin Islands, for some time rather unsually
had a Liverpool agent, (in Penson, Colonial Agents, pp. 106ff), at one time it
was
thought Sir William Meredith should go out, by 1776, but he was then
Controller
of the Household, so it was decided to appoint John Pownall, under-sec of
State
in the American Dept and secretary to Board of Trade. the appointee was one
George Suckling. a certain London group had been intriguing about the
appoinment.
In 1783, Henry Rawlinson of Liverpool was appointed. Penson, (Colonial
Agents,
p. 167) says George Chalmers a later agent for the Bahamas was appointed after
1782 chief clerk to the committee of Privy Council known as Board of Trade,
a Bahamas man till he died in 1825. Chalmers (p. 168) in his day regarded as a
notable
opinion on the history of the revolt of the Americans. in Penson, Colonial
Agents,
p.168 citing George Chalmers, An Introduction to the History of the Revolt of
the American Colonies. 2 Vols. Boston, 1845. Chalmers also wrote on Britain's
Treaties with other powers.

A Robert Morris had partner in 1776 dealing with Martinique, William Bingham,
American commissioner; and on Santo Domingo, Morris had his (Secret
Committee)
agent, Stephen Ceronio. In Williamsburg was Benjamin Harrison Jnr. David
Stewart worked at Baltimore. At New Orleans was Oliver Pollock, also dealing
for Willing and Morris. Charles Willing was on Barbados. In 1776, one firm
was
Willing, Morris, (Swanwick) and Co. Operating in Europe were Silas Deane,
John
Ross and Samuel Beale. Morris had regular European associates, Samuel and J.
H. Delap at Bordeaux, Andrew Limozin at Le Havre, Clifford and Teysett of
Amsterdam.
Deane and Ross began to deal with LeRoy de Chaumont a procurer of supplies
for
the French army, and John Holker, later the agent of the French navy in
America.

29 Feb, 1776, Beaumarchais wrote to king of France, true words, "The famous
quarrel between America and England, which will soon divide the world and
change
the system of Europe ... and he warned the king, if America and England made
up, they would attack the French West Indies to make up their losses, so he
recommended that France assist the Americans without compromising France -
while
Vergennes felt that helping the Americans would reduce the power of England,
maybe give back the fisheries of Newfoundland the French had long resented
losing ...
So Vergennes wanted any French aid to America kept secret. Meanwhile the
British
had brought off the secretary of the weak-and-despised London French
ambassador,
Guines, and had planted a renegade Jesuit in the French embassy who knew of
Canadian affairs, Roubaud (sic ok), and Roubaud as a double agent kept in
touch
with Lord Dartmouth and John Pownall (an America-hater) - the undersecretary
for American Affairs, Roubaud gulled Guines about plans for an Anglo-French
alliance against the Americans, saying to the English it was a French idea,
so this fuelled British arrogance against the Americans, and Lord Sandwich at
the Admiralty sent copies of such a false document to America as a warning to
the Americans, but the upshot was the Louis decided to help the Americans.
(Fleming,
1776 Illusions, pp. 110-113.)

A ship in serious trouble: American scrimshaw art. As
used as a
logo on the business card of Scrimshaw Gallery Ltd., Pier 39, San
Francisco.

1776, April, (Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol 1, p. 158), Beaumarchais the
Frenchman,
associate of Arthur Lee, sending supplies to US via West Indies, with the
semi-fictional
company of Hortales and Co. (Ferguson, Purse, p. 42, Note 42), See Louis
Leonard
de Lomenie, Beaumarchais and His Times. New York, 1857., surmising p. 278
"that
French merchants other than Beaumarchais got subsidies from the French Court
in order to give aid to America." Also, the "booming" war trade
to the West Indies is described in J. Franklin Jameson, 'St Eustatius in the
American Revolution', American History Review, 8, (1902-1903), pp. 683-708.

April 1776, profit on Statia gunpowder had jumped 120 per cent, some shipped
to America by Marylander Richard Harrison, and Abraham von Bibber spent time
on Statia, Much powder bought with borrowed French money with Statia merchant
Isaac van Dam active here, admitting he caried out his trade on behalf of
Frenchmen;
and in London, Lord Rochford sec of state for Europe accused France of
gunrunning
to America, and Vergennes disagreed about any breach of agreements here.
(Fleming,
Illusions, pp. 210ff.)

2 April, 1776, Louis of France decided he would help the Americans separate
from England, he ordered the navy to begin rebuilding and army to purchase
new
equipment. And on 2 May he agreed to back Beaumarchais' dummy company,
Roderigue Hortalez and Co, which would supply munitions to Americans. but Louis also
decided to dispense with Turgot. whereupon Turgot with great prescience warned Louis
of the fate of the necks of kings, and exit Turgot. Vergennes then persuaded
Spain to assist Hortalez, and so in all, the French supported a revolution
that
would lead to the re-arrangement of France! (Fleming, 1776 Illusions, p.
113.)

By May 1776, (Ver Steeg, p. 19), Robert Morris' half brother Thomas went to London
to settle the affairs of Willing and Morris (Ver Steeg p. 205 Note 31, about
10,000 pounds), overall, he was a bungler, ending back at Nantes. Some of Robert
Morris contacts were with French firm De Pliarne, Penet and Gruel, rather a
questionable firm. Eventually Deane complained of Thos Morris indulging in
the
good life, Morris at Market Street in Philadelphia, and Morris appointed John
Ross a Philadelphia merchant to replace Thos Morris for Willing and Morris.
Ross here handling deals worth 70,000 pounds sterling by may 1778. Ferguson,
Purse, p. 83, and Note 27, p. 84 Note 29, To Sept 1776, Morris suggesting
Deane
do deals with Thomas Walpole in Britain, Chaumont in France, and Legrand with
branches in France and Holland, to sop up the neutral or indirect trade(s)
between
Britain and America. Deane tried to interest Delaps in this. p. 83, The
British
Govt itself connived at the trade, Ferguson writes, which was enabled by
transferring
ownership and registry of ships to make them appear to be owned by partners
in other countries. such arrangements lasted till 1779. By 1781, Ferguson p.
127, many goods acquired by the US in Europe were of British origin. Aug
1776, Ver Steeg on Morris, p. 206 Note 39, a British merchant Thomas Walpole
has his name implicated in a US idea, Morris realised that the American
armies
could not be adequately supplied except by Great Britain, therefore an idea
to set up with 400,000 pounds sterling to include a group of London merchants
including Thomas Walpole, some French merchants such as Chaumont, plus Morris
and his associates, citing T. P. Abernethy, Commercial Activities of Silas
Deane,
American Historical Review, XXXIX, p. 478. But Ver Steeg feels the link was
much more with French merchants. (Ketchum, p. 43), By May 1776 the French and
Spanish had set up a dummy company, Hortalez (sic) and Cie, to conduct a
clandestine
arms and munitions business with the Americans so as not to embarrass their
governments, one of the American contacts here was Silas Deane, whose life is
a confusing story, the son of a Connecticut blacksmith who graduated from
Yale
in 1758. Ferguson, Purse, pp. 195-196. Late in 1777 re Beaumarchais, he
sent
an agent, de Francey to American to collect money due to Beaumarchis for
supplies,
but discrepancies were in de Francey's accounts, congress dealing with
Alderman
Arthur Lee was unsure if supplies had not been a gift of the French court,
but
Congress wanted to settle with Beaumarchais, Silas Deane a dealer here.
Beaumarchais
paid to January 1782. Matter still not clear, although B's heirs paid
something
in 1835. Thomas Barclay here reviewed accounts, etc.

Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol 1, p. 158-159, May 3, 1776, Vergennes in France
wrote
to Grimaldi the Spanish minister that France intending to advance one million
livres for aid to the American colonies. Govt would not appear in it, a
merchant
would arrange matters. Meanwhile a US arrangement from Secret Committee
dealing
with Penet, Pliarne and Co, interested with the French Farmers-General in
American
tobacco. Arthur Lee involved here. Silas Deane buying munitions.

William Bingham, aged 24 in 1776, re fitting of the American army due to Abraham
van Bibber, Richard Harrison, Thomas Burch (sic) and/or William Bingham, who
worked in the West Indies and by mid- 1776 had supplied Wshington with enough
gunpowder. (Fleming, Illusions, p. 205.) Also, see Robert C. Alberts, The Golden
Voyage: The Life and Times of William Bingham. Boston, 1969.

By 3 June, 1776, Committee of Commerce had sent young William Bingham to
Martinique
to do business, on American war ship, Reprisal, Capt Lambert Wickes, who
actually
had a mostly British crew! Wickes who had sailed merchant ships for Willing
and Morris. At Martinique a British warship challenged Reprisal and Reprisal
sent a broadside, the ships duelled, the British lost, and a minor diplomatic
incident occurred, with the British speaking diplomatic tosh and the French
saying so, and about now, one American ship operated (half-owned) by Abraham
von Bibber was Balitmore Hero. Bingham meantime had a small fleet of
privateers
and made phenomenal profits he shared with Robert Morris, in one week his men
got fourteen prizes. (Fleming, Illusions, p. 213), see Robert C.
Alberts, The Golden Voyage: The Life and Times of William Bingham. Boston,
1969.

Mid-1776, by now, Thomas Burch head of Thomas Burch and Co had shipped 50
tons
of gunpowder to Thomas Mumford of Groton, Connecticut, a relative of Silas
Deane. (Fleming, Illusions, p. 211.)

In the later 1770s, Baltimore merchants worked with a popular party in
Maryland
led by Charles Carroll of Carrolltown, Samuel Chase, and others, while more
radical were John Hall, Mathias Hammond and Rezin Hammond. In 1776, some
Baltimore
merchants formed a Whig Club, devoted to an idea of deporting anyone opposing
independence, which increased general political support for independence. (T.
Thompson, p. 23.)

1776: (Ferguson, Purse, p. 83), and Note 27, p. 84 Note 29, To Sept 1776,
Morris was suggesting Deane do deals with Thomas Walpole in Britain, Chaumont in France,
and Legrand with branches in France and Holland, to sop up the neutral or
indirect
trade(s) between Britain and America. Deane tried to interest Delaps in this.
p. 83, The British Govt itself connived at the trade, Ferguson writes, which
was enabled by transferring ownership and registry of ships to make them
appear
to be owned by partners in other countries. such arrangements lasted till
1779.
By 1781, (Ferguson, Purse, p. 127), many goods acquired by the US in Europe were of
British
origin.(Ferguson, Purse, p. 89, Note 44), a close friend of Deane was Edward Bancroft,
a British spy whom Deane and Franklin employed unwittingly. Bancroft made
frequent
trips across the Channel and it was said that these trips were linked with
stock
speculations in which Deane participated, the principal English associate
being
Thomas Wharton. See Carl Van Doren, Secret History of the American
Revolution.
New York, 1941.

(Ferguson, Purse, p. 80, Note 19), re firms such as Benjamin Harrison paymaster
of the Continental army in Virginia, Carter Braxton, Jennifer and Hooe, J. H.
Norton and Samuel Beale of Virginia, Hewes and Smith of North Carolina, John
Dorsius of Charleston, John Wereat in Georgia. Circa 1776, another Morris
agent
was David Stewart at Baltimore.

About July-August 1776, (Ferguson, Purse, pp. 78-81), Morris' partner in 1776 to
Martinique was William Bingham, American commissioner, and on Santo Domingo,
Morris had his (Secret Committee) agent, Stephen Ceronio. In Williamsburg was
Benjamin Harrison Jnr. David Stewart at Baltimore. At New Orleans was Oliver
Pollock, also dealing for Willing and Morris. Charles Willing was on
Barbados.
In 1776, one firm was Willing, Morris, (Swanwick) and Co. In Europe were
Silas
Deane, John Ross and Samuel Beale. Morris had a regular European client,
Samuel
and JH Delap at Bordeaux, Andrew Limozin at Le Havre, Clifford and Teysett of
Amsterdam. Deane and Ross began to deal with LeRoy de Chaumont, procurer of
supplies for French army, and John Holker later the agent of the French navy
in America. Clifford and Teyset of Amsterdam.

1776, Tobacco merchant Molleson's Maryland agent was Matthew Tilghman, a Maryland
Congressman.
Russell's agent in Maryland was John Grahame of Nantes, presumably related to
Charles Grahame. Molleson at William and Robert Molleson, of No 1, America
Square,
his residence also there. (Jacob Price, p. 196.)

Early 1776 - There was a Virginia firm dealing with Robert Morris (Ver Steeg,
p. 21),
JH Norton, CM Thurston and Samuel Beale, and Morris using a Capt Ord who had
sailed to St Eustatius, and Morris by now was encouraging some privateers. Morris
brought tobacco from Carter Braxton of Virginia. Also in tobacco was Benjamin
Harrison.

1776: Turgot, his views, one of "the Physiocrats", served Louis XVI,
believed all wealth came from the land, eschewed war for commercial advantage
in guise of political rivalry, had little interest in foreign policy, wanted to
see a France whose wealth and fertility from the soil surpassed perfidious
Albion. Did not want paper wealth as created by the Bank of England. Meantime the
Farmers-General was "a corporate entity which was virtually a state within a state", with
the right to collect the taxes of France, and things were, Turgot's views on
reform of tax sent the tax-evasive French aristocracy into hysteria. Turgot
especially warned the king against war, as any gunshot would drive the state
into bankruptcy! So he did not advise the young Louis in early 1776 to assist
the American rebels. at the time the French ambassador to England was Count
de Guines, there had been diplomatic veerings in 1775 between England and
France
over 1775, the upshot with France's foreign minister Vergennes was that
France
would assure England it would not help the Americans, and then it would
secretly
help the Americans. Vergennes was wanting cheaper loans from the Dutch to
offset
the murderous interest rate of the Farmers-General, and as Louis waffled
about
not stabbing Geo III in the back, Vergennes needed another man and found him
in England, Pierre Augustin Canon de Beaumarchais, aged 44. and in 1774 he
had
the confidence of French officials, unofficial envoy to Spain, secret agent
for Louis XV in London, where (apart from adventures with the
gender-mysterious
French spy, for Louis XV, Chevalier Charles d'Eon de Beaumont) (six ok
correct
spells) Beaumarchais met radicals John Wilkes Lord Mayor of London and Arthur
Lee the American. [Wilkes, said mockingly, he had never been a Wilkite)
(Fleming,
1776 Illusions, pp. 102-108ff.)

About mid-1776, when Guines the French ambassador been in London, he had
tried
unsuccessfully to play the stock market, his bankers being Huguenots Baurieu
(sic) and Chollet (sic) who threatened to sue the French king for Guines' debts
once courts found in Guines' favour, and Necker soothed them with promises of
their handling some millions as he handled France's finances. (Fleming,
Illusions,
p. 446.)

1776: 19 December, 1776, a general assembly of state of Virginia resolved to
expel
and banish British merchants and factors from the state. Meantime, British merchants froze the assets of American colonial merchants.
The US found it difficult to create extra credit in France as it could not
ship
produce there. At this time Morris used agents such as Benjamin Harrison Jnr
and Carter Braxton of Virginia, plus Stephen Stewart and Jonathan Hudson of
Maryland. Men such as Hewes and Smith in North Carolina and John Dorsius in
Charleston were buying indigo and rice, sending to the West Indies. In
December
1776, Carter Braxton claimed, "I was appointed to purchase tobacco for
the [US] Army", and he said due to Robert Morris' insinuation Braxton could
use some money for his own purposes, various army supply deals mentioned in
1777. Swiggett writes that Morris would often complicate deals by adding
riders which if they came off would turn extra profit, but if not, then only
annoy people around him. Also, that in August 1778 when Braxton (who died
1797)
was re-establishing in Philadelphia after the British evacuation, that Morris
purchased some protested bills of Braxton's and then made financial claims on
Carter Braxton, possibly also converting things here into pounds sterling,
but
apparently still kept money out of Braxton's hands here. Swiggett p. 116,
says
Washington wanted one of his own nephews to join Tench Tilghman, associated
with Robert Morris, for some reason, Thomas McKean the chief justice of
Pennsylvania
recommended Peter Whitesides about 1788 "a man of Morris-Braxton money
morals", to John Adams in London as he had been concerned in trade with
Robert Morris and was a skilful merchant. John Nicholson was soon to become
Morris partner as Morris splitting with Willing and Morris. Swiggett >
p.116
dates Morris' moral decline from 1781, and John Nicholson accelerated the
process.
Swiggett p. 139 in 1795 apparently, some ratification of the Jay Treaty, long
chain of events, re resignation of sec of state of US, by October 24 an
American
serving on the American Claims Commission in London was Samuel Bayard, Bayard
in contact with Tom Paine.

Circa 1777

1777: (Greenberg, p. 21), by about 1777, two large China merchants re Canton were
Messrs
Hutton and Gordon, Chinese owed them about $1,176,000. One Abraham Leslie an
aggressive China resident. A noted semi-pirate was Captain MacClary.

(Ferguson, Purse, pp. 195-196.) Late in 1777 re Beaumarchis, he sent an agent,
de Francey to America to collect money due to Beaumarchis for supplies, but
discrepancies were in de Francey's accounts, congress dealing with Alderman
Arthur Lee was unsure if supplies had not been a gift of the French court,
but
Congress wanted to settle with Beaumarchis, Silas Deane a dealer here.
Beaumarchis
paid to January 1782. Matter still not clear, although B's heirs paid
something
in 1835. Thomas Barclay here reviewed accounts, etc.

1777 - (Oberholtzer, p. 323), Dutch bankers so helpful to Morris were Willink
and Co. (Ver Steeg, p. 208, Notes 42- 48), Morris deals with John Parish of Hamburg (who is almost impossible to retrace)) via John
Ross who handled Morris and Willing abroad, and Ross had an account with John Parish
of up to 200,000 pounds sterling. Ross dealt in his own private capacity with
British trade via John and William Craig, Delap and Conyngham. (Ver Steeg citing
Account Book of John Ross, PHS, p. 1. p. 59.)

(Ver Steeg, p. 15), Feb 1777, Bingham wrote Morris re they were buying tobacco
for
France "pretty deeply". But there were few good judges of tobacco
commerce to rely on.

(Ver Steeg, pp. 16-18), the trade between North Carolina and Southern states and
Martinique quite helpful by April 1777, dealing with Chaumont in France, an
influential French merchant,

End of 1777, (Ver Steeg, pp. 28-31, firm of Willing and Morris broke up, but
this not announced till 28 July, 1778. Willing wanted to wind up English
affairs,
Morris disliked working with the French, and between 1778-1781, Morris became
acknowledged as the premier merchant in US, now completely private, he
continued
with Bingham working at Martinique, privateering tapered off, Capt Ord went
back to ordinary sailing, and Morris teamed with a partner, Jonathan Hudson,
who speculated in salt, then tobacco, then the two did business with tobacco,
rum, plantations, lands, Hudson being rather impetuous, and also linked to Peter
Whitesides and Co., from July 1778. Hudson buying eg., 2000 hogsheads a time. Morris also
dealing much with the French merchant John Holker (There are forty volumes of
Holker Papers in the Library of Congress), Morris dealt for Holker in
Philadelphia,
Virginia and Maryland.

1777 - (A. Dickinson, Falklands sealing, p. 50) - Francis Rotch's ventures to
Falklands terminated when Rotch returned from the Falklands in 1777. Charles
Hayley died that year, too. (citing Stackpole, but does he mean George Hayley
here?) Dickinson says Rotch in 1777 became business adviser to the Company
and
to Mary Hayley, new widow. Mary Hayley wished to continue as a whaler,
although
on a reduced scale. Dickinson (p. 51) suggests Hayley and Rotch became
romantically
involved, and he may have induced her to try the Falkland Islands plan again.
Francis' brother William Rotch disliked the plan, William wanted sea otter
skins
from the Northwest Pacific Ocean to Canton, which would have entailed sailing
around Cape Horn.

Battle of Long Island. p 33, Sept 1777, Sir William
Howe,
Brit, sailed up Chesapeake Bay to the Delaware and occupied Philadelphia.
(Tuchman,
The First Salute: 1988), p. 122,
at least some of the American naval supplies and gunpowder were bought with the
proceeds
of sales of American tobacco and indigo. >>> p. 159, America used to
trans-ship
some supplies through Portugal. (Tuchman, The First Salute. 1988, p.
176), Edward Bancroft was a spy for British espionage, he was a correspondent
of the American commissioners. Tuchman, The First Salute: 1988., p.
301, Naval officers were generally Whiggish in outlook. Tuchman, The First Salute, 1988.,
pp. 308-309, Brit's attitude to American War was a matter of planlessness and
carelessness,
complacency, and the navy was riddled with factionalism. Tuchman, The First
Salute: 1988., p. 313, Britain calculated an ending to the
American
Revolution, by the spring of 1777 - and of course, was wrong. Tuchman, The First
Salute: 1988., p. 332, Graft was a way of life to the English
officials.

A ship in serious trouble: American scrimshaw art. As
used as a
logo on the business card of Scrimshaw Gallery Ltd., Pier 39, San
Francisco.

Circa 1777

1777-1778, Navy in London decides on timber supplies from Canada, St John
River
in New Brunswick, still a part of Nova Scotia, Colbert wanting to supply
France
from New France. but failed here. Extensive timber trade from Nova Scotia,
the
timber pioneer at New Brunswick was William Davidson, who began in 1779, an
initiative from commissioner at Halifax Andrew Snape Hamond, Davidson worked
from Fort Howe. (Albion, Forests and Sea Power, p. 291.)

1777-1778, Scammell went from London, went to the Baltic, St Petersburg for
masts, and had made a contract with Riga merchants Wales, Pierson (sic) and
Co. of Riga for more masts and that supply lasted for the war. (Albion, Forests
and Sea Power, pp. 287-288.)

Circa 1778

To about 1778, the most-named British contractors helping prosecute the American war
seemed to be, Nesbitt Drummond and Franks, Mure, Son and Atkinson, Anthony
Bacon,
John Amyand, Hennicker, Wheler/Wheeler, Wombwell and Devanes, James Bogle
French
John Durand, see AO Bundles, 197-208. Also, Jones, Smith, Baynes and
Atkinson,
from www.americanrevolution.org/britisharmy4.html -

New notes from Klingelhofer, after 1779, Matthew Ridley became involved in a
new
importing business with John Holker Jnr (who had made many enemies in France),
Robert Morris, Jonathan Williams, Joshua Johnson (an associate in London of the
American William Lee), Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont a shrewd French businessman
dealing with the Americans, Edward Bancroft a doctor and a spy for the British
at times, sometimes Benj Franklin's secretary, Simeon Deane a merchant in
Virginia
and others. p. 96 and Kling says, John Holker Jnr. lived in France with his
Jacobite
father till sent in 1777 by French Govt to report on conditions in US, later he
was appointed consul-general in Philadelphia and he helped equip French
men-o'-war
in American ports and fit French armies, and as an active or silent partner in
many businesses he made and lost fortunes, he was a partner with Robert Morris
till 1784, when recriminations began, John Holker Papers are in the Library of
Congress, (Klingelhofer, p. 96), Thomas Digges was sent by Lord North on a
mission
to Holland to talk with John Adams on idea of a truce in March 1782,
Klingelhofer, p 97, Ridley in a new phase when in March 1781 he was appointed agent for
Maryland to obtain a loan for the state in Europe, and he also took two of
Robert
Morris' sons (Robert and Thomas), to Europe for their education, so Ridley went
to France in November 1781, Ridley at times also dealt with Gouvenour Morris,
Ridley got no loan in France but after dealing with John Adams in Holland got
a loan from Nicolaas and Jacob van Staphorst in Amsterdam. Ridley back in
France
in August 1782 and became friends with John Jay. few secrets were kept from
Ridley,
about September-October 1782 when Britain and US negotating, terms of the Jay
draft learned in London on October 8, 1782, he knew of animosity between Jay
and
Franklin, Ridley observed the high level powerplays between France, Spain and
Britain which threated to swamp US interests, Klingelhofer, p. 101, Aug
28, 1782, M Ridley sees Dr Bancroft, Robert Morris p. 102
prefered to deal with French financier Ferdinand Grand. Klingelhofer, p.
102, 31 Aug, 1782, M Ridley sees John Jay and discusses eg Robert Morris dealing
with French financier Ferdinand Grand, Klingelhofer, p. 103, 3 Sept.,
1782, Matthew Ridley sees Mr Thomas Barclay of the Philadelphia firm of mercantile
Barclay,
Moyland and Co, and Barclay here is also American consul in France,
Klingelhofer, p. 119, on 12 Oct, 1782, Ridley dined with Mr Richard Neave and Son and
they complained of Samuel Wharton a Philadelphia merchant, who had let them
down
as Neaves had backed a firm Boynton, Wharton and Morgan, matter of 33,000
pounds
sterling, Wharton of Philadelphia and also a land speculator. Mr Neave now
failed.
Same discussions on Oct 13, 1782 with Neaves. Klingelhofer, Matt Ridley knows
by 27 Nov, 1782, Thomas Townshend and lord mayor of London been concerned to
prevent
speculation in the city re war news and ideas about negotiations with America,

Swiggett, p. 207, an example once of Pickering's way of doing things,
[during
the Rev?] a Philadelphia merchant named Charles Derby received a bill of
exchange
of the Dutch banking house Hope and Co, in payment for goods purchased by
John
Pigeon. Pigeon could not be found to exist. Pickering protested the bill,
feeling
it was a forgery.

Circa 1779

1779 - (Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol 1, p. 129), Carter Braxton seems to have
stepped
into the gap in tobacco-handling business created when the Scots factors had
been thrown out of the colonies, and merchants such as DC and Christopher
Court
were unable to trade. Jan 1779, Braxton complains of low price of tobacco and
wanted to trade with Holland, via Antigua or St Eustatius.

date?

See Pierre Vilar, A History of Gold and Money, 1450-1920. London. Verso. 1991.
pp. 268ff, There was a Roux company in Marseilles. Other financiers p. 275
included
the Perregaux, Mallets, Hottinguers, Vernes. Royal or Court bankers before
french
Rev included Paris-Duverney and De Laborde. see here PAF notes re Robert Morris.
Necker an employee of Thellussons, from Lyon then to Geneva, Necker became
a great Paris financier, did much business with England as well as with the
French EICo, Necker dealt for credit with the English house of James Bourdieu
and Samuel Chollet (who are little known), in 1760s, and the enemy of Necker was Isaac Panchaud, who
was familiar with English institutions, who had many failures, a Paris bank
also was Cottin (sic) at time of American Revolution, Pierre Vilar, A History
of Gold and Money, 1450-1920. London. Verso. 1991., pp. 277-278.

France got silver especially from Cadiz, some finance houses involved being
English companies Gough and George Browne, and French companies Jolif, Magon
and Lefer of Saint-Malo (were Catholics not Protestant), Le Couteulx
(Catholics)
of Paris and Rouen and (see especially Vilar, p. 276) on them, they were very cautious
about the Law system), Lenormand and Cie, Casaubon and Behic, Gilly Freres,
Fornier Freres, some Paris bankers were Waters, who dealt with the Gough
company
of Cadiz where English transactions were considered, (Pierre Vilar, A History
of Gold and Money, 1450-1920. London. Verso. 1991., pp. 268ff.) There was a Roux
company in Marseilles. Other financiers (p. 275) included the Perregaux,
Mallets,
Hottinguers, Vernes. Royal or Court bankers before the French Revolution included
Paris-Duverney
and De Laborde.

Circa 1779

1779 - France - Re Pierre Augustine Caron de BEAUMARCHAIS, died 1799, a dramatist and watchmaker
by trade. Wrote two comedies which influenced Rossini, re Barber of Seville;
and re Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro which was taken as an attack on
privileges
of aristocracy. In 1775-1775 he was used as an agent by Silas Deane and
Arthur
Lee, sent supplies by the dummy company Hortalez and Cie, some payment to be in
tobacco never forthcoming, and (B was a noted litigant who wrote wittily
about
his cases) matters not resolved till 1835 when heirs of B were reimbursed by
Congress. See E. S. Kite, Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence.
(See Sainsbury, Pro-Americans, p. 437.)

Circa 1780

1780-1786: Free trader firm working India about 1780, Sulivan, Jourdain and de Souza. Who were they? Sulivan was presumably the London-based EICo chairman Laurence Sulivan died 1786. Jourdain unknown, the de Souza might have been Sir Miguel de Souza of Bombay (husband of Anna Maria) who had died by 1810 if not earlier. But none of this is clear.

1780++: (Maybe spurious info?) See Richard Kelly Hoskins, War Cycles - Peace Cycles.
nd Virginia Publishing Co. PO Box 997, Lynchburg, VA 24505. USA. in Nexus
Magazine,
Feb-March 1994. pp. 30ff, in 1780 the ejection of the British left a banking
vacuum in America, Alexander Hamilton presented three arguments for a central
bank, to do for the US what the Bank of England had done for England, done by
himself and his backers some of whom were reputed to be Rothschilds and their
Bank of England (were Rothschilds in England at the time?). In 1781 the
private
Bank of Pennsylvania was replaced by Bank of North America [among those in
the
original subscription were Benj Franklin, Thos Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton,
James Monroe, John Jay, John Paul Jones, Commodore John Barry. a leading
force
was Robert Morris; this bank opened on Jan 1, 1782 with capital assets of
$335,000;
in four years it had grown 600%; it grew to 68 branches; it possesses the
oldest
cheque drawn in US dated March 18, 1782. In 1784 was founded Bank of New
York,
a Hamilton creation. Later was formed Bank of Massachusetts, Virginia settled
her areas named Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. In 1786 came
first major depression in US as new banks took interest. Banks foreclosed
debtors
forcing them into poverty and debtors prison. Many farmers ruined. Led by
Capt
Daniel Shay some 2000 men seized Worcester, Massachusetts and other towns,
threatening
the establishment of interest-charging banks in US. Gov of Mass took field
against
"Shay's rebels". on 27 Feb 1787. in 1787 the Constitution was put
together in Philadelphia the home of Bank of North America. in 1791 was
chartered
the First Bank of the US, a private bank to which all govt's money was
entrusted
with a charter for 20 years and opposed by James Madison of Va on Feb 2,
1791.
Its successor was Second bank of the US, discovered about 50 years later to
have 64% of its 25,000 shares owned by foreigners, mostly British, friends of
the Bank of England. In 1793, George Washington put down what he called "the
Whiskey Rebellion",

1780

Circa 1780: Nantucket Island or nearby: Parents of Mary Rotch Eliot who married whaler William Rotch son of William James Rotch and Emily Morgan.

After November 9, 1780, (Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol 1, p. 252), William Lee is
mentioning the name of the Dutch banker, Van Berkel, and a contract. and
Laurens
knows of this. Sumner (p. 252) says that British knowledge of this contract
became
the immediate reason for the war between Britain and Holland.

1780ff - Ver Steeg p. 51, US had out some 165 ships out privateering, with
6000 men aboard, especially from New England towns. quite a year for business
confidence in US. John Holker purchased in US for the French forces, 1781 a
peak year for American privateers, the number declined in 1782.

(Ver Steeg pp. 32-33-34), spring of 1780, Morris is now dealing with William
Turnbull
and Co, and Holker and Morris became partners with Turnbull here. Later
Turnbull,
Marmie and Co. Holker taught Morris much about dealing with France, Holker
let
Morris use considerable funds freely. Holker also made links with William
Turnbull
and Co, Benjamin Harrison Jr and Co, and Stacey Hepburn and Co, re
tobacco,indigo
and rice, Hepburn sent some goods via St Eustatius. Some of Morris words re
morality and judgement by society Ver Steeg p. 35, suggest Morris might have
been a Mason.

Ver Steeg p. 227, various letters from Morris to Matthew Ridley in August
1781.
Ridley Papers, mostly concentrated with the Massachusets Historical Society.
- In 1781, Ver Steeg p. 35, Morris linked with a new Philadelphia house
Samuel
Inglis and Co, from Virginia, a man ruined by the burning of Norfolk. Inglis
engaged in shipping ventures, and Morris also linked with Isaac Hazelhurst to
get European goods to US. Then Morris linked with Morris, Samuel Beall and
John
May to procure unused lands in Virginia. Morris by now linked with Carter
Braxton
re tobacco and shipping, John Ross for goods shipped from Europe, Conyngham
and Nesbitt re privateers, Matthias Slough for commissary needs, Hewes and
Smith
for tobacco and shipping, and with Thomas Mumford, Thomas Russell and John
Bradford
for shipping. By 1780, Morris' expansion meant he had nine major partnerships
to deal with. - Ver Steeg p. 58, office of Superintendent of Finance in US
created
by Congress on Feb 7, 1781, many eyes turned to Robert Morris.later dealing with
Necker the French minister or director-general of Finance, Morris also worked
out a scheme to carry Spanish silver from South America and West Indies the
Spanish could not receive due to British squadrons, possibly to use the money
for US purposes. Morris also became agent for Pennsylvania. - Ver Steeg, p.
74, Morris writes to Matthew Ridley re troops supplies prior to Yorktown
conflict
of August 1781-ish, eg 3000 barrels of flour. Ver Steeg p. 139, Matthew
Ridley
when in France a partner with Holker, agent of the French Marine. Ver Steeg
p. 145, Ridley's name appears on scholar's lists of early American
corporations.
- (Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol 2, p. Chapter XVIII), Sumner has a highly detailed
discussion of money in the colonies, exchange rates, the mint, coinage, the
history of the weird uses of money, and various different forms of money, in
the American colonies, all the product of Britain's ineffective financial
system
applied for decades to the colonies, Robert Morris being driven to obtain the
best assays of the contents of various available coinage just to try to find
a rational means of justifying transactions large and small. If Robert Morris
had trouble here, any London merchant such as DC from, afar would have
exceptional
difficulty in measuring US commercial matters, and changes in commercial
matters.
-

early 1780, Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol 1, p. 239, tobacco to be requisitioned
as a commodity to be accumulated and traded, to pay for import of items which
could not be furnished by the US, necessary imports. By April 1781, the
blockading
of the Chesapeake made this almost impossible to succeed.

After November 9, 1780, Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol 1, p. 252, William Lee is
mentioning the name of the Dutch banker, Van Berkel, and a contract. and
Laurens
knows of this. Sumner p. 252 says that British knowledge of this contract
became
the immediate reason for the war between Britain and Holland.

fix if repated Ver Steeg p. 32-33-34, spring of 1780, Morris is now dealing with William
Turnbull
and Co, and Holker and Morris became partners with Turnbull here. Later
Turnbull,
Marmie and Co. Holker taught Morris much about dealing with France, Holker
let
Morris use considerable funds freely. Holker also made links with William
Turnbull
and Co, Benjamin Harrison Jnr. and Co., and Stacey Hepburn and Co., re
tobacco,indigo
and rice, Hepburn sent some goods via St Eustatius. Some of Morris words re
morality and judgement by society Ver Steeg, p. 35, suggest Morris might have
been a Mason.

See - Ernest Samhaber, Merchants Make History: How Trade Has Influenced the
Course
of History Throughout The World. London, Harrap, 1963. In 1730, English drank
coffee, after heavy propagandizing by the EICo they turned to tea, and from
then the Co lived on the tea revenues ... On a man named
John Parish, During the American War, with the British naval blockades, a
British
merchant John Parish worked in the free Hanseatic town of Hamburg, forbidden
by Britain to send ships to the West Indies [see Tuchman on Americans getting
gunpowder through Eustatia], Parish' ships flew the Hamburg flag, the British
consul threatened Parish with confiscations, etc, but Parish protested the
usefulness
of his shipping, and his neutrality, of the trade from Hamburg, so the consul
allowed Parish to keep his passport. Some of Parish' troubles were due to envious
competitors in Hamburg, it's said. Hamburg was an entrepot port for British
colonial
merchandise for Central, northern and eastern Europe, eg in WI sugar and
coffee,
EICo tea, and the French were striving to obtain the customers of the
British. p. 299, Hope and Co of Amsterdam had significant holdings in Baring Bros and
Co., John Parish dealt with them. (pp. 278ff), John Parish was originally a
Liverpool-based
son of a sea captain, who had settled in Hamburg and begun a ships chandler's
business, John took it over at age of 20, about time of the Seven Years War,
//p288, Britain supported Frederick the Great with subsidies inc WI goods,
paid
in silver, transferred ion goods via Hamburg, and Parish' house experienced
a boom, he sold sugar, rum, tobacco and coffee, WI goods from Liverpool, to
Baltic ports, he was badly hit by the Fordyce problem in 1772-1773, when
Fordyce
crashed, so did Clifford and Sons in Amsterdam and Terner [sic] in Bremen,
Parish
lost 4000 pounds sterling, he began using bills of exchange, which the banks
discounted, but on which they advanced money, as security, Parish might hand
over his ships bills of lading, he dealt to Baltic, England, Portugal, Spain
and France, a leading grain merchant, large to America which was risky. He
concealed
the true nature of his dealings by camouflaging his warehouses and ultimate
destinations of cargoes, at one time had had 100,000 pounds worth of bills
dishonoured,
very risky. Parish lost money in running cargoes to WI, losing 16,000 pounds
sterling in just two ships chartered to WI. He was still in Hamburg in 1789,
tried speculating in post-1789 French currency, was dealing with Hope and Co. in
Amsterdam, and with Harman, Hoare and Co. in London. Parish dealt here also
with a partner of the Paris firm, Boyd, Ker and Co., speculators there, and
the Marquis de Walkiers, son of a crown banker of Brussels. pp. 284ff,
Walkiers
was acquainted with the American banker, Morris, US ambassador to Paris, who
stayed
at Parish' house, Altona, just outside Hamburg, so Parish became first US
Consul
in Hamburg, (Foster Dulles, The Old China Trade p. 39), in 1796 the Americans
began shipping tea to Hamburg.] this strengthened his capital, in Liverpool,
Parish' suppliers were Richard and Mathieson, and G&H Brown, while in
London
the firm Burton, Forbes and Gregory, who opened up paper credit for Parish,
and they supplied money to the Liverpool suppliers. the modern business term for
such techniques is kite-flying, an excellent way to go bankrupt, .... a crash
in Holland led to the demise of Burtons, and Parish also was damaged.
p. 285,
Parish had bought large volumes of grain for British govt, drawing on Scott,
the factor of the British PM, Pitt. In 1793, Parish looked as though he might
crash due to being out by 2,000,000 Marks Banco [a currency unit based on
silver). He also dealt with Caldwell and Co. in London, and he lost 13,000 pounds for
example with Burton (5000 pounds slid away on the Hamburg rates of exchange).
G. and H. Brown in Liverpool went bankrupt. //p288, the Hamburg firm of Berenberg
did business with Constantinople, Venice, Milan, Genoa, Marseilles, Algiers, Cadiz
and Lisbon, Nantes, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Bristol, Copenhagen to
Archangel. -- Samhaber explains bills of exchange pp. 289-290. /// p290, one firm was
Berenberg
and Gossler. ///pp. 297ff, David Parish took over from John his father and in
1809 he pulled off a stunning deal in silver that enraged Napoleon.
(But we find that John Parish was not a well-known name in London of 1787. How has he escaped attention except from Samhaber?)

1780: New Englander Waity Brown married to Wyllis De Wolf (born 1780).

Active 1780: Caribbean: Marquis de la Motte married to Mary Hylton daughter of Judge William Hylton (1749-1837) of Jamaica and wife Mary Johnson.

Circa 1781

1781++ - (Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol 1, p. 306), Virginia in anarchy due
to
poor administration. By June 8, 1781, Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol 1, p. 281,
Robert
Morris wrote to French Paris bankers Le Couteulx (sic) and Co. to open an
account with them. at a time when US agent Henry Laurens had been thrown in
the Tower of London, Le Couteulx seems to have been Morris' banker. Sumner on
Robert Morris, Vol 1, p. 94, about Feb-March 1781, Geo III of opinion that even
with French aid, the US could not restore its paper currency. Geo III
generally
of opinion that British credit would outlast all shocks of this war and
assist
a victory for the Mother Country. He was not wrong, but events proved
otherwise,
only just. (Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol 1, p. 36), In 1781 the agent of
Virginia
complained to Washington that the Virginia troops were "so naked they could
not leave their quarters." and various American historians writing on Robert
Morris indicate the army was made of the waste people from the lower orders,
the affluent found it inconvenient to fight with Washington. - Oberholtzer
says,
p. 60, Geo III regarded by 1781 the mismanagement of the American finances as
his greatest ally - he cannot, (?) have been advised here by
anyone
but the men of the City. Just as Robert Morris was brought in to shore up
American
financial behaviour. - Ver Steeg p. 227, various letters from Morris to
Matthew
Ridley in August 1781. Ridley Papers, mostly concentrated with the
Massachusets
Historical Society. In 1781, (Ver Steeg p. 35), Morris linked with a new
Philadelphia
house Samuel Inglis and Co, from Virginia, a man ruined by the burning of
Norfolk.
Inglis engaged in shipping ventures, and Morris also linked with Isaac
Hazelhurst
to get European goods to US. Then Morris linked with Morris, Samuel Beall and
John May to procure unused lands in Virginia. Morris by now linked with
Carter
Braxton re tobacco and shipping, John Ross for goods shipped from Europe,
Conyngham
and Nesbitt re privateers, Matthias Slough for commissary needs, Hewes and
Smith
for tobacco and shipping, and with Thomas Mumford, Thomas Russell and John
Bradford
for shipping. By 1780, Morris' expansion meant he had nine major partnerships
to deal with. - Ver Steeg p. 58, office of Superintendent of Finance in US
created
by Congress on Feb 7, 1781, many eyes turned to Robert Morris. Later dealing with
Necker the French minister or director-general of Finance, Morris also worked
out a scheme to carry Spanish silver from South America and West Indies the
Spanish could not receive due to British squadrons, possibly to use the money
for US purposes. Morris also became agent for Pennsylvania. - Ver Steeg, p.
74, Morris writes to Matthew Ridley re troops supplies prior to Yorktown
conflict
of August 1781-ish, eg 3000 barrels of flour. Ver Steeg p. 139, Matthew
Ridley
when in France a partner with Holker, agent of the French Marine. Ver Steeg
p. 145, Ridley's name appears on scholar's lists of early American
corporations.
- Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol 2, p. Chapter XVIII Sumner has a highly detailed
discussion of money in the colonies, exchange rates, the mint, coinage, the
history of the weird uses of money, and various different forms of money in
the American colonies, all the product of Britain's ineffective financial
system
applied for decades to the colonies, Robert Morris being driven to obtain the
best assays of the contents of various available coinage just to try to find
a rational means of justifying transactions large and small. If Robert Morris
had trouble here, any London merchant such as Duncan Campbell from, afar would have
exceptional
difficulty in measuring US commercial matters, and changes in commercial
matters.
-

1781

(Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol 2, p. 221), in 1781 Robert Morris sent his two sons
Robert
12 and Thomas 10, to Europe for the education, in care of Matthew Ridley,
commercial
agent for Maryland. The boys at Geneva and Leipsic till 1788 when they came
home.

Ref Pool, 1782, In the spring of 1782,
there
were debates in both Houses on a Contractors' Bill designed to prevent
members
of Parliament from having any interest in Govt contracts. The Act was passed
Act 22 Geo III c.45, providing that all persons holding Govt contracts should
be incapable of being elected or of sitting in the HOC, subject to a penalty
of 500 pounds per day, Every gvt contract was to contain "an express
condition
that no member of the HOC be admitted to any share of part of such contract,
or any benefit to arise therefrom. Samuel Whitbread supported the Bill in the
House. Act 22, Geo III c.45, An Act for restraining any person concerned in
any contract, Commission or Agreement made for the Publick Service from being
elected or sitting or voting as a member of the HOC. This is the Act Oldham
speaks of. (See re Act 25, Geo III, c.19, Pitt's Bill for the Reform of
Abuses
in Publick Office.)

Braxton was educated at College of William and Mary, signed Declaration of
Independence,
in 1757-1760 he lived in England, encyc also = no mention of Robert Morris or
tobacco
deals. (Greene, Carter Diary, Vol. 1, p. 270), he was Burgess for King William
Co, 1761-1771, 1775-1776, member of the Virginia Conventions 1774-1776,
delegate
to the Second Continental Congress. This man took up marketing American
tobacco
by arrangement with Robert Morris early in the Am Rev. See Evans, Planter
Indebtedness,
p. 531, this man on a list of those opposed to repaying debts to British.
There
is also a man of similar view, probably a relation of Landon Carter's family,
Robert Carter Nicholas. By contrast, George Washington opposed non-payment.
See Thomson, Upper James River, p. 407, noting Duncan Campbell never received tobacco from
Upper James River area, the 1773-1775 exporters of tobacco from Upper James
included, William Allen, Jerman Baker, Burwell Bassett, Robert Bolling,
Thomas
Bolling, Carter Braxton, William Byrd, Charles Carter, Colonel Edward Carter,
Archibald Cary, Wilson Miles Carey, Rev Wm Coutts, Francis Eppes, Charles
Gilmore,
John Harmar, William Harwood, Henry Henderson, William Lightfoot, Henry and
Edmund Lyne, John Mayo, David Meade, Everard Meade, Richard K. Meade, Joseph
Montfort, Robert Munford, Robert Carter Nicholas, John Pankey, John Paradise,
John Pleasants, Thomas Prosser, Brett Randolph, John Randolph, Richard
Randolph,
Thomas Mann Randolph, William Randolph, Henry Skipworth, James Smith, John
Throgmorton,
Richard Tunstall, Robert Turnbull, Abram Venable, Benjamin Waller, John
Wayles,
Cary Wilkinson.

Swiggett on Robert Morris, Sketch of Robert Morris in Howard Swiggett, The
Forgotten
Leaders of the Revolution. New York. Doubleday. 1955. Swiggett, t33 p. 38>
Wadsworth was in France in 1783 - many men by 1777-1783 thought "Washington,
Wadsworth and Robert Morris were the great triumvirate from whom anyone could
borrow". Swiggett suspects that by November 1788, Morris was just beginning
to find himself inextricably caught in a downward spiral of debt. t51
Swiggett
p. 42, VIP In 1786, half the original stock of the Bank of North America
was owned by Wadsworth and his partner Church, Robert Morris and William
Bingham,
also linked to the foreign cargo ventures of William Constable and Co - all
the leading venture capital deals of the day were linked with this whole
group.
Swiggett p. 70, Littlepage at times an associate of John Jay, been in London,
a "sometime secret agent" in Europe, like Gouvernour Morris and Aaron
Burr coming finally to Hamburg t45 - Swiggett p. 88-89, says Chancellor
Livingston as Minister in Paris also connected with the t44 Lousiana
Purchase;
Monroe helped connsummate the purchase from 1803 to find that Livingston had
closed the deal for five million dollars more than authorized to pay, to
include
Louisiana and whole western side of the Mississippi, "Tallyrand wished
to cut his losses" the groundwork had been laid by Thomas Pinckney the
regular minister for London, though John Jay was thought by many to be
responsible,
. Swiggett p. 114, in December 1776, Braxton says, "I was appointed
to purchase tobacco for the [US] Army", and he said due to Robert Morris'
insinuation t23 Braxton could use some money for his own purposes, various
army
supply deals mentioned in 1777, Swiggett said Morris would often complicate
deals by adding riders which if they came off would turn extra profit, but if
not, then only annoy people around him. Swiggett, p. 114, says in August 1778
when Braxton (who died 1797) was re-establishing in Philadelphia after the
British
evacuation, that Morris purchased some protested bills of Braxton's and then
made financial claims on Braxton, possibly also converting things here into
pounds sterling, but apparently still kept money out of Braxton's hands here.
Swiggett p. 116, says Washington wanted one of his own nephews to join Tench
Tilghman, associated with Robert Morris, for some reason, Thomas McKean the
chief justice of Pennsylvania recommended Peter Whitesides about 1788 - t51
"a man of Morris-Braxton money morals", to John Adams in London as
he had been concerned in trade with Robert Morris and was a skilful merchant.
John Nicholson was soon to become Morris partner as Morris splitting with
Willing
and Morris. Swiggett p.116 dates Morris' moral decline from 1781, and
John
Nicholson accelerated the process. Swiggett pp. 139 t69 in 1795 apparently,
some
ratification of the Jay Treaty, long chain of events, re resignation of sec
of state of US, by October 24 an American serving on the American Claims
Comission
in London was Samuel Bayard, Bayard in contact with Tom Paine. Swiggett p.
145,
1796-1797 were years of financial ruin for Morris and Nicholson, at which
time
the agent for Morris in Hamburg is John Parish, asking Parish to sell US land
for him. Swiggett p. 153, in Feb 1798 an action by a minor creditor sent
Morris
to a debtor's prison, and while he was there, John Parish in Hamburg plus
Gouverner
Morris made efforts (Swiggett says p 154) to extricate Morris. Swiggett p.
207,
an example once of Pickering's way of doing things, [during the Rev?] a
Philadelphia
merchant named Charles Derby received a bill of exchange of the Dutch banking
house Hope and Co, in payment for goods purchased by John Pigeon. Pigeon
could
not be found to exist. Pickering protested the bill, feeling it was a
forgery.
Swiggett p. 258-259, 1787-1788, t51 Thomas Pinckney is in London re
negotiotions
re evacuation of British troops from Northwest posts, settlement of private
claims by Revolution, reimbursement by Britain of slaves taken, settlement of
private American debts with British merchants, wanting also freedom of the
seas,
a right to trade in their own American bottoms in any port of the world on a
most-favored nation basis with Britain, on his arrival in London at a time
when
Britain at War with France, many of the rulers had known Pinckney at
Westminster
School, Oxford or Middle Temple before the revolution. Gouverneur Morris had
the year before Pinckney's arrival here been the special agent in London.
this
appears to be before the Jay Treaty arranged, Pinckney was unable to conclude
any arangements, so by April 16, 1794, against strong opposition, John Jay
confirmed
as envoy extraordinary to London to secure a settlement. so this is all
pre-Jay
material. Swiggett p. 271, to about 1797-1798, Rufus King the US Minister
in London.

Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol 2, pp. 168-169, Morris seems to have been impressed
by the French interest in taking tobacco, so once he resigned he entered such
trade on his own account, made a contract with the French Farmers-General of
France, but it seems the French made the first overture - so was it Robert
Herries
working here, but we ask with Robert morris dealing with French,
he may have also been attracted by Herries' habit of often paying in
cash?????
It seems one Jonathan Williams and his father in law, were linked here, so
Morris
linked with them. By March 1784, contract re 15,000 hogsheads of tobacco per
year for three years. Morris also dealing re tobacco with Le Norman
receiver-general
of finances of France, for 60,000 hh of tobacco in 1785, 1786 and 1787, using
link with Le Couteulx in Paris. In 1785, a shipment of 2000 hh were lost,
Morris
and Alexander still linked, Morris by 1788 wanted the business continued, but
matters lapsed, some earlier tobacco quality been poor and tobacco then quite
scarce. Sumner p. 170 says these tobacco arrangements produced a clamour in
Virginia due to arguments about price.

(Olson, Making the Empire work, p. 179), Christopher Court, Thomas Eden John
Blackburn, Thomas Land, Alex Champion; and Davis Strahan and Co all survived
the war and returned to American trade. The old tobacco merchant Daniel
Mildred
became a banker, as did many Quakers. William Telfair and Basil Cooper
bankrupted.
De Berdt, Dearman and Co became brokers for the purchase and sale of American
land [one wonders if they dealt with Robert Morris?]. John Norton's heirs did
not continue their trade after Norton died. Olson, Making the Empire work,
p. 179,
by 1783, Cooke and Ralph had gone bankrupt, and Fludyer, Hudson and
Streatfield
reported they had broken up. Olson, Making the Empire work, p. 175, after
1783 the Annapolis tobacco exporter Wallace revived links with Joshua Johnson
in London. Thomas Jefferson considered dealing again with Carey, Moorey and
Welsh "though he didn't much like them". Carey and Moore died. Olson,
Making the Empire work, p. 175, from 1783, Olson writes, Christopher Court
and Thomas Eden as soon as shipping was safe re-established old business with
pre-war tobacco growers in Maryland. John Blackburn tried to resurrect old
associations,
Mary Hayley wrote to pre-war correspondents, wanting orders from her deceased
husband's former clients. Some New England firms rushed back to do business
with firms such as Lane, Son and Fraser, or Champion and Dickason. Some New
York merchants tried Londoners such as John Blackburn (who had a new partner)
or Fludyer, Hudson and Streatfield. Olson, Making the Empire work,
pp. 174ff,
in 1783 with the end of the Revolution, many of the pre-war interest groups,
writes Olson, actually expected to re-establish their earlier associations in
America. but cohesion was gone. some London interests had to work their
English
provinces, while some Americans sought to create new national US links.

Patrick Colquhuon, Lord Provost of Glasgow in 1782, and in 1783 founded the
Glasgow Chamber of Commerce.

1783: Dakin, Whalemen Adventurers, intro. Dakin places the beginning of the English South Whale
Fishery,
applying to the Southern Atlantic, as 1783, following the close of the
American
War of Revolution.

A ship in serious trouble: American scrimshaw art. As
used as a
logo on the business card of Scrimshaw Gallery Ltd., Pier 39, San
Francisco.

Circa 1783

1783: "The British Creditors" as a lobby group, tobacco dealer Sir Robert
Herries, Benjamin and W. Vaughan. Duncan Campbell. The rather mysterious firm, Lane, Son and
Fraser.

1783: Olson, Making the Empire work, p. 179, only nine of Annapolis'
seventeen
leading 1774 firms survived to 1783.

1783: Steven, Trade, Tactics and Territory, p. 66-67: Stackpole pp. 16-17.Sam Enderby's sons Samuel
Jnr,
George and Charles had recently joined their father in his work at the
Enderby
counting house, Lower Thames St., at Paul's Wharf. After the Treaty of Paris,
a son of Samuel Enderby had gone to Boston, USA, to engage Nantucketeer
whalers
for employ from England. By 1785, Enderbys employed 30 Nantucketeers. Steven
p. 67: "Under Pitt the whalers of the southern fishery enjoyed an indulgence
that has few parallels in British economic history". After 1783, whale
oil became important enough to involve international politics. Stackpole
p16-17>
Other London merchants following Enderby example were Alex and Benj Champion,
Thomas Dickason, John St. Barbe. Alex Champion Snr. had been assoc with
George
Hayley Co, a "merchant of eminence" who became president of Lloyd's
of London. p. 17, St. Barbe was an able entrepreneur reputed to have
been a Lt in Royal Navy "also, an adventurer in [the] Whale Fishery....of
a very active and enterprizing adventurous disposition, and seems very
sanguine
in the pursuit of it". Francis Rotch St pp. 24-25 continued as an advisor
in London to Madame Hayley as she continued her husband's whaling business.
> Olson, Making the Empire work, p. 246 Note 4, p. 250, Note 60, cites
Mary
Hayley business letter to Christopher Champlin, 1 Feb, 1783, 22 May, 1783,
Commerce
of Rhode Island, 1776-1880, Boston. 1915. II, p. 170.

1783: April, Complete independence of the USA ceded by Britain. In Britain with the
termination
of hostilities, convict transp to America became a more common sentence -- despite the practical absurdity that convicts could no longer be sent to America.

Maryland's prominent Whig merchant, George Salmon, did not know George Moore
in London, but Salmon knew Philip Moore who had originally urged the
business,
George's brother in Philadelphia. In April 1783 Salmon wrote to George Moore,
and thought selling cons had been a good business. Salmon confident of his
political
connections. Salmon promised he would be far from leading Moore into a
scrape,
Salmon to Moore April 30, October 3, 1783. Ekirch secret trade p. 1287, note
10. From Woolsey and Salmon Letterbook. p. 1287, note 10.

April 1783, with the American war nearly over, George Salmon, a leading Whig
merchant with an eye for the main chance, had written to George Moore about
renewed opportunities for selling British felons to local Maryland planters.
The two had never met, but Salmon had been urged to write to George Moore by
Moore's brother, Phillip, a Philadelphia merchant. Notes from A. Roger
Ekirch,
Great Britain's Secret Convict Trade To America, 1783-1784. The American
Historical
Review, Vol. 89, No. 5, December 1984, pp. 1287. Salmon was not unduly
concerned
re convicts not being permitted to land in Maryland, although he certainly
was
aware of earlier opposition to their importation and the growth of
anti-British
sentiment during the Rev. No law yet existed to prohibit the trade in felons
and Salmon had confidence in his political connections. But caution suggested
the mission of the George be disguised, so Salmon and Moore agreed to market
the ships' people as indentured servants, to rename the vessel, and to
announce
in London that Nova Scotia was to be the destination. Once at sea, the ship
master, Thomas Pamp, would sail to Baltimore. See Joshua Johnson to John Jay,
Aug 22, 1783,; Matthew Ridley to William Paca, Sept 12, 1783, James Cheston
to William Randolph, Feb 23, 1784, Feb 18, 1785. renaming the ship Swift. See
Salmon to Moore, April 30, 1783, Library of Congress, Washington, Peter Force
Collection, series 8D, Woolsey and Salmon Letterbook, WSLB. Note 8, p.
1287-1288,
four Salmon/Moore letters dated June 11, June 29, July 20 and Aug 17, 1783,
are only referred to, otherwise unavailable.

Ekirch, Convict secret, p. 1287, Note 10, Maryland merchant James Cheston a
onetime
trader in cons called Salmon a very high Whig in a letter to William Randolph
on Feb 18, 1785. (Cheston Galloway Papers at Maryland Hist Soct. Ekirch, p.
1285, Moore's George ready to sail within weeks with 143 cons after July 12,
1783.

April, 1783: Complete independence of the USA ceded by Britain. Bligh placed
on half pay as a Jnr Lt. 2/- per diem.

date is? James de Lancey the greatest landlord in South New York State, who
constituted himself an agent for procuring colonists among Loyalist refugees
in Nova Scotia and was disappointed when the scheme fell through.

A ship in serious trouble: American scrimshaw art.

1783: Re end of American Revolution (from http), when the Rev began, Cork was chosen as supply
base
for the Am rev, the British army was fed from London, did not live off the
land;
in 1776 the treasury apptd Robert Gordon, the surveyor general of Munster, as
commissary of provisions at Cork, in 1779 he was replaced by John Marsh per
Navy Board as agent victualler, George Cherry had a similar position at
Deptford
and Cowes in England itself. Provisions were sent fro Cork to Montreal,
Quebec,
Halifax for Canada, New York and Philadelphia for Middle Colonies, Charleston
and Savannah for the southern colonies and St Lucia for the West Indies.
Contracts
came partly, originally, from Sec of state for the colonies, dealt with army
contractors, not clear if there was competitive bidding, but samples of
provisions
were seen, apparently no public tender of bids, the views of adjutant-general
Edward Harvey was much sought. Few of the actual contracts can be found
today,
but were from 12-16 months, provisions were deliverable at contractors risk
and expense to either America or Cork, on 2 April 1776 the board contracted
with Messrs Nesbitt, Drummond and Franks, for 12,000 men for16 months
beginning
1 January 1776. Food but what about grog? In Nov 1776, the commissary generalat
New York complained re bad good quality, bad packaging contributed, in
Canada, commissary general was Nathaniel Day, from 20 March 1776 to late 1777, and
also
for Canada, Daniel Chamier, 1774-1777 for Canada, Daniel Wier (sic) 1777-1781
and Brook Watson, 1782-1783. Each commissary-general had staff, in 1775-1776

1783-84-85: KM Dallas usual p. 46, 36: French Government established at Dunkirk
a colony of whalers with American "loyalists" from Nantucket. This
would have relieved French dependence on oil bought from London merchants.

1783++: Some of the major land companies operating in America in the
period
included:

1783++: Cf., Mary Elizabeth Ruwell, Eighteenth Century Capitalism: The
formation
of American Marine Insurance Companies. New York. Garland Publishing Inc.
1993.
[Per Tod Moore]. Cf., on Baring, and Gouv. Morris, p. 89 of
H. C. Allen, 'The Anglo-American Relationship since 1783. London, Adam and
Charles
Black, 1959. Robert Morris financier of the American Revolution with some New
York merchants sent his first ship to China, the Empress of China.

Circa 1783: (Sumner on Robert Morris, Vol 1, p. 73), re squabbles over US paper money, the
Quakers refused to handle it as it had been issued for purposes of war, the attitude
of the Nantucketeers here was particularly resented, "the accursed crime
of refusing paper money", the Nantucketeers as we know from other sources
also had a hard opinion on The Debt Repudiation Question.

1783 Circa: Allen Byrd (Virginia?) married to Bassett Harrison.

1783: American debtor to Britain, Baylor Bland.

Circa 1784

Kellock informs that one Nathaniel Tracy by 1783 had become linked to Lane,
Son and Fraser of London. John Lane (whose father had recently died) in 1784
went to Boston from London, as in 1783 his father has unwisely loaned money
to Tracy, who was verging on bankruptcy. Lane stayed five years in US, using
the assistance of lawyer John Lowell and of Boston's leading banker, Thomas
Russell. Lane's presence in Boston is consistent with information presented
by Bhagat about Lane and Fraser's activities. (G. Bhagat, p. 9, Note
40.) See Holden Furber on US trade to India.

Michelguglielmo Torri, 'Trapped Inside the Colonial Order: The Hindu Bankers
of Surat and their business world during the second half of the Eighteenth
Century',
Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 25, No. 2, 1991., pp. 367-401. On p. 384 re David
Scott of EICo in 1784 was owed 191,254 pounds by the Bombay government and
owed
208,870 to his clients in India. He went to London in 1786. It is known that
when Wellesley was at war in India, Scott got the military contracts.

NOTES FOR SALEM MERCHANT RICHARD DERBY, (See G. Bhagat, p. 9), this man traded
to West Indies, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Gibralter, till Am Rev. Name Elias
Hasket
US-India DERBY Salem Merchant, died 1799, NOTES FOR SALEM MERCHANT ELIAS HASKET US-INDIA
DERBY, His business was largely liquidated on his death. Cf., Marion V.
Brewington, Maritime Philadelphia, 1609-1837, The Pennsylvania Magazine of
History
and Biography, Vol. LXIII, April 1939, pp. 110-111. He had a ship to India in
1784, Grand Turk. (See Bhagat p. 10), he also sent many ships to Mauritius. at
times a US India ship earned profits of 700 per cent. One of Derby's Captains
was Capt Jonathan Ingersoll of Grand Turk in 1784. another captain was John
Gibaut (sic) Derby's son was Elias Derby Jnr who lived in India at Madras by
1790. Other US-India traders were Benjamin and Jacob Crowninshield. by 1792.
Cf., Richard H. McKey, Jr, Elias Hasket Derby, Merchant of Salem, 1739-1799,
Ph.D, Clark University, Worcester, Masachuseets. 1961 not available. G.
Bhagat
article, p. 7, on 15 Dec 1792, Derby in India stated that his ship Grand Turk
would soon sail for the US. Bhagat p. 7 notes on William Duane, an American
who set up a newspaper in Calcutta, rather startling, got into trouble and in
1794 he appealed to John Jay, then in London with Jay Treaty, for assistance,
to no avail. Duane was arrested and whisked out of British India. Gordinier
p. 153 says that due to his immersion in US-INdia trade he became US first
millionaire.
See Gordinier article on US-INdia trade.

Phillis
Wheatley, a slave in Boston

Findings on
a researcher's disaster zone

From Dan Byrnes, the editor of this website .... written January-February 2008

The issues noted below are suitable for
e-mailing to a wide range of contacts. So why not do it?

One
of the problem-people issues is a symptom I find with some historical research - and
it's a lose-lose, no-win symptom. It is the situation where an allegedly
famous person exists, for which there is evidence for certain
kinds of discussions. But where this famous person is allegedly and
regularly
associated with other people, who are less easy to identify and
discuss. What is not clear, what is obscured, is - what would
happen to our views on the famous person, if
more information could be discovered about the other persons said to be
in association?

In this case, it is the story of a
female slave, and her owner(s). The slave (and later, a former
slave) became famous, but no extra information arises on her
owner(s). Yet much of the "evidence" about the earlier life
experience of the slave is quite dependent on the life of the
owner(s), on whom we continue to know little. A peculiar kind of
negative feedback loop is at work here. circa
1775, this is a rare case
in American colonies of an educated slave, yet it remains impossible to
discover more on who educated the slave, how and why.

And
it is quite easy to use fiction to generate a similar, exemplary case
of the problem.
Say, the case of a famous non-officer soldier in World War One,
distinquished for his bravery. He later marries, say, and lives a
mostly normal life. His wartime bravery continues to be discussed. But
if no one asks about his wife, we will never know if he was a good or
bad husband, or father, if he was a father. Say he has a son, who also
distinguishes himself in battle in World War Two. Might we then wonder
about the son's mother? What sort of family did the son grow up in? Was
it an over-militarized family? Was the father relaxed about his short
military career? Did he over-stress it? Or did he suffer post traumatic
stress disorder, disrupting an otherwise normal life? Did the son
consciously or unconsciously over-compete with his father in some way?
Or was the son's battle courage partly an outcome of a set of
coincidences during a fog of war. Courage in battle is not
hereditary, but a son can be educated/trained in such matters.
It might be that courage in battle is a response-to-challenge that
rises up in some soldiers more than others. Say that this case of
father-son bravery continues being discussed, but that other such
aspects of life
are not discussed. One would predict that discussions of the
military aspects of the case will become lopsided, overweighted, if
other details on the family remain absent from the discussion.

I
stayed up very late one night trying to sort out
the amazingly
mangled merchant story associated with Boston slave Phillis
Wheatley.
Spent
hours on the Net to scratch only a few
extra details. Results were mostly zilch. Very
unrewarding.

In
this case, we have the negative symptom noted above, illustrated by
repeated reference to a Boston merchant, John Wheatley, who cannot be
suitably researched as a Boston merchant, and certainly, he cannot be
seen at all as
part of a merchant network, as his associates cannot be identified. Yet all reports are that John Wheatley ought to have been part of affluent commercial networks it is possible to discuss. He apparently really did exist! (Is it relevant or not that a Wheatley family friend is ships captain Robert Calef? Can Calef be suitably researched as a way of finding more about John Wheatley?)

On
the Net we can easily find the quite-famous story (in
America) of slave Phillis Wheatley, (1753-1784), a poet. She
was
America's first
female
Afro-American poet and a tragic case. She is subject of much hero
worship in USA (heroine worship?) but her life story is oddly mixed
with much-mangled information. I also have to confess
that personally, I don't find the reports on
Phillis to be about an amazing and unexpectedly good-quality poet to be
convincing.
Rather, I
find her an almost bizarre case of an intelligent (and probably very
likable) person in a sad
condition of mishandled cultural transplantation, a case not especially
well-handled in her own lifetime, and badly-handled since.

Phillis
was a
girl of 6-7 from Senegal or Gambia. (It remains uncertain, there seem
to
be no linguistic clues to her region of origin, therefore, no clue as
to
her original tribe.) She found herself on a slave
ship named Phillis, and landed in Boston. At the
time, Mrs Susannah
Wheatley (died 1774) of Boston wanted a slave/companion, and at the
slave market one day she decided on a rather plaintive little
girl
(slim, inadequately dressed for the season, somewhat ill, front teeth
missing, but with sweepingly intriguing eyes) whom she named Phillis
after the ship. (See
a Google Books Result, Carol Chandler Waldrup, More Colonial Women: 25
Pioneers of Early America, no other details yet, mentioning that
Nathaniel married Mary Enderby. One wonders if it would be useful to examine on the owner of the ship Phillis, to see if the ship was named for a woman of the shipowner's family, which given shipowner behaviour re ship names, is very likely.)

The family was of New
South Congregational Church,
Boston,
and Susanna was so enthusiastic about religion,
she corresponded with
Selina Hastings, Countess Huntingdon, well-known in England as
"the aristocratic apostle of Methodism".
The Countess was quite happy to reply to Susannah's letters, it seems.
Susannah (her maiden name, her parents in colonial America, seem to
remain unknown and
quite unasked about)
was wife to Boston merchant John Wheatley (died 1778).
Reports differ on John W., who remained a Loyalist, of King
Street
Boston,
(later a Boston city street for banks). He is variously seen
as a merchant
tailor, a
wholesaler, a wharfinger, a man in real estate, and manager
of a regular
London-Boston ship, London Packet,
Capt. Robert
Calef. Yet with such a range of activities, he apparently had no
other ascertainable associates or partners! None that we can find!

The
Wheatleys had not anyway intended Phillis to ever be worked hard, she
was to be a domestic, and
they found
her highly intelligent. So the Wheatley daughter, Mary, educated her. But on the Net,
none
of the
voluminous
heroine-worship of poet Phillis Wheatley asks a single
question
about how Mary was so well-educated
herself, and such a good teacher, that Phillis's talents could
be
nurtured and allowed to grow so relatively quickly! It does
seem
however, that Phillis developed warmly enough in the bosom of the Wheatley
family.

Phillis
learned English quite rapidly, and shortly she could
understand
difficult passages in the Bible, and she liked Alexander Pope's
lofty-toned poetry enough to try to begin to write in that style.
Phillis also, hardly surprising given the enthusiasms of her
religiose owner, Susannah, became
rather a Christian. Temperamentally, personality-wise, poets when they
are young do tend to
be sponges who enthusiastically - and insightfully - soak
up influences around them. Phillis Wheatly
as poet was
no surprise at all in this respect, she was typical.

We
get nowhere
asking more about the Wheatleys, yet, one
of Phillis' early poems was
about a
family story (apparently) of the Wheatleys; how two mariner relatives
named Coffin and Hussey almost shipwrecked during a storm off
Cape
Cod (date not given). (Coffin and Hussey may not have been relatives of the Wheatleys, merely dinner guests, it is not clear so far from reports).

But
from websites at least we
hear absolutely nothing more about either Coffin or Hussey that could
contribute further to sorting out the Wheatley family history, except
in the name of the poem. Given the state today of American genealogy
websites for surnames such as Coffin and Hussey, this situation (a
fairly ordinary research situation) is plainly absurd in an "only in
America" way. One might easily presume Coffin and Hussey were from
Nantucket Island, but with family history, nothing should ever be taken
for granted, particularly not regarding John Wheatley.

Phillis'
poetry impressed Boston and caused comment. Susannah W. wrote
to Countess
Huntingdon, and ideas arose of getting Phillis published in London, as
Boston printers couldn't handle any such idea. In 1773, young
Nathaniel
W. took Phillis to London on London Packet Capt
Calef. And no one
in America today seems to ask how it was that young Nathaniel
W. was so well connected that he
could
introduce Phillis to important people. Socially, Countess Huntingdon
took a
hand here. of course. Phillis for example met Brook
Watson,
later
a Lord Mayor of London in the 1790s; and a few noted British
politicians of the
day.

Her
first book was a success.
She was advertised in the literary press as a slave of John W. of
Boston, etc. Happily, John W. manumitted Phillis in 1774 (some say,
December 1773), though no one
seems to
note that 1774 was the year that his wife Susannah died (after an
illness of 14-weeks or more, as Phillis reported in one of her letters to
her black friends). The American
War of
Independence intervened. John
W. was a Loyalist, probably the reason he repaired from
Boston to Providence, Rhode Island (or to Chelsea of London, England,
no one seems sure).

Phillis at least from Providence RI where she lived with Mary
Wheatley and her husband, Rev John Lathrop, once wrote to George Washington; it
not
being explained how a Boston lass, merely a recently manumitted slave,
was now on Rhode Island, and how a mere ex-slave of precocious literary
talent was writing to America's newly-famous Revolutionary
General-to-be. However, Phillis in
general is taken to have continued to live with Mary Wheatley,
which to this point in her life chronology, is the
point. No one seems to bother that the genealogy of the said Rev. John Lathrop arrives in at least two versions, neither of which is entirely convincing.

From
here the lines of research tend to go pear-shaped. Mary W. of Boston
married a Rev. John
Lathrop (nothing useful arises from American websites on his lineage).
They
were also at Rhode
Island. Whether Mary's father (a Loyalist departing Boston), and
Phillis, had actually moved in with Mary and Rev. Lathrop remains
unclear from US websites; but it is a fairly ordinary domestic
detail to want to know about! Mary died in 1778, the same
year
as her father (no one asks if they died of the same ailment, one
suspects a fever (?)). Otherwise, her brother Nathaniel
W. apparently married; but few of the American commentators suggest whom
he married.

Well,
there is nothing on the Net re genealogy of the Wheatleys (or is that,
Whatley?) of Boston. There are a group of Wheatleys on the Net who
married to the name Bliss. Names here begin to duplicate weirdly. We
can find a
Bliss
genealogy website which mentions a Capt. John Wheatley (husband of
Submitt Peck [sic]),
who for reasons unclear in the 1760s led an expedition to Cuba.
Wheatley/Peck
here had a daughter Mary who married a Rev. John Lathrop, but she does
not exactly seem to have a twin brother, Nathaniel.
Whatever, the
writer of the
Bliss website thinks that this Capt. John W. was of the family that
bought Phillis the slave girl/poet. Not much else ties up. The name
Rev.
John Lathrop here on the Bliss website is about the only common fact
that might link these two different Wheatley stories. But this Rev.
John Lathrop died, and his widow (who does not die in 1778) re-married
to
the name W. Bliss, which fails to tie anything up usefully. It seems a
fact, however, that the "real" Rev. John Lathrop after Mary Wheatley
died, had married as second wife, one Mary Checkeley. (From US genealogy
websites on Lathrop).

Meantime,
in distant Australia, an amateur historian (or family historian) in
Toowoomba, Keith R. Dawson,
who says he is a descendant of the Enderby whalers of London, and has
e-mailed the present writer, has the
view that Nathaniel
the son of Susannah of Boston, and twin brother of Mary, married Mary
Enderby, daughter of Samuel Enderby Jnr and Ms Goodwyn. These Enderbys being the notable Enderby whalers of the English South Whale Fishery Citing dates
and suitable evidence. This Nathaniel, who was the brother of Mary the
teacher of Phillis,
evidently stayed in London and died in 1783, leaving several daughters and otherwise silence. None of the Americans
wonder what happened to him. If Dawson is correct, the American writer
of the Bliss website noting the Wheatleys is mistaken.

Dawson
has suggested that American readers do not know of the link between
Nathaniel Wheatley and Mary Enderby. But this is not so. See a chapter
on Phillis Wheatley in Carol Chandler Waldrup, More
Colonial
Women: 25 Pioneers of Early America. McFarland and Co.,
1999. (?) Mentioning that Nathaniel married Mary Enderby in
November 1773, when Nathaniel's mother was ill, so that
Mary visited Boston in early 1774 after Sussannah had died.
(Prior to her death, Susannah Wheatley had been ill for 14
weeks or more, according to a letter by Phillis to one of her
friends as given in Waldrup's book.)

Also if
Dawson is
correct, one rather wonders if Nathaniel didn't go
to
London on business, or to accompany Phillis on a literary promotional
tour, as much as he went to
London to marry? If he indeed married eg., Mary Enderby, on which the
Enderby genealogy itself is not so reliable. In Dawson's
view, the name Enderby
here (London-based whalers) had connections with the tea ships
of the Boston Tea
Party (on which topics, Dawson and the present writer disagree
considerably, but that is maritime, not literary history).

One
wonders why and how two family historians, one in Australia
(Dawson-Enderby), one in the
USA (re Bliss-Wheatley), can be so at odds with reference to just one
name - John Wheatley. It is quite remarkable.
Yet both wish to use the Phillis Wheatley slave-poet story to
buttress their own
remarks about John Wheatley. This is, quite simply, a case of fame
being mis-used. Did Phillis ever meet Mary Enderby, and does it matter?

So
basically, if we go not by the Bliss genealogy website story, but by
the main Wheatley story, the one mostly accepted
by the
"literati"
in the USA, Phillis unfortunately found that all her Wheatley
friends died around her, one by one, all too rapidly, so that her literary
situation
distintegrated; and her proposed second collection of poems
disappeared till
about 1863. She married a failed grocer, and an odd fellow, a freed
black named John Peters. It rather seems, there were
relatively few
freed male blacks in
Boston that she could have chosen for a marriage
partner, and
that she
chose unhappily. She had
three
children and died in 1784 having just given birth to her third child;
mother and babe died together, it seems.

The
life of poet Phillis Wheatley becomes a very sad
story,
but it is even more notable because for all her relative fame, it is still so very badly put
together.

There
is by the
way a legend retailed by one e-mailer to the editor of this
website, that the
Enderbys, John St Barbe, and
James Mather, all noted whaling investors in London of the 1780s, were
all
originally from Boston and that they had kept in touch a lot when in
London - which this editor does not believe at all (however,
the
three certainly had kept in touch in London for many years, where-ever
they were from
originally).

As to a wide variety of facts, if Enderby, St Barbe and
Mather were indeed from
Boston, the Nathaniel Wheatley story re Mary Enderby hangs
together a lot better; so does John W's. decision to remain Loyalist -
but this legend seems not to be true - and only better-quality family
history can put any arguments finally to rest.
(There is a Prof. Rod Mather on Rhode Island today, I'm told he is a
descendant of this same James Mather.)

To
add research spice to this
section of the tale, the remains of the famed ship of explorer Captain
Cook,
Endeavour, have been found to lie on harbour bottom
at Newport, Rhode
Island. When Cook and the British navy had finished using Endeavour,
one story arises that she was bought by James Mather, a London-based
whaling investor, an associate of the Enderbys, who re-chartered her to
the navy. She
was captured by Americans and ended being sunk as part of an
American blockade to annoy British shipping (information also available
on websites.)

Here, better information on the story
of the Enderbys could perhaps easily be used to solidify information on
James Mather, Nathaniel Wheatley, Enderbys in London, and so, Phillis
the poet. But this is
not the way discussions on a poet will ever run, it seems.

All
this hangs
together so
very badly, one wonders gravely about the literary-heroine yarns
regarding Phillis Wheatley as a
poet worth encouraging; a precocious literary talent, in her times a
rare case of a female
black slave, manumitted. A young black from
Africa, a poet writing
in English during the time of the American Revolution; a
Christian, a writer against slavery, the very first
female Afro-American writer, etc etc. Who was taught by people
who are only discussed, today, because she became famous, and who
otherwise had largely unverifiable existences?

Phillis seems
to have been an
unfortunate-but-talented African person taken from her country at a
tragically early age, who was literally ripped apart by cultural
incompatibilites while an amazing political and military revolution
proceeded around her on
grounds that she couldn't well understand, or particularly identify
with. She died in what might be called, "the despair of dying
in
childbed".

We find
in the literary
treatments, nothing on
Wheatley, John, of Boston, merchant, owner of a mere one ship,
wharfinger; he apparently has no ancestors, or surviving progeny.
We know nothing of his family that is useful. This John
Wheatley is
constantly mentioned on the Net, but only in connection with
Phillis; but as far as website information goes, he had no real
life of his own in Boston as a merchant or anything or anyone else,
except for his association with Phillis. The marriage of his son
Nathaniel to Mary Enderby of London is entirely overlooked, even as
footnote territory.

It's
all quite a Net-delivered farrago of modernistic
literary-pseudo-history nonsense
and mostly a
literary beat-up for today's US college and university
literature
students intellectually besotted by the tropes
of Feminism
and/or Black Studies. None of which has anything to do with the actual
quality of her poetry. (There is a
recent book on Phillis by one Eliot.)

For history proper, history of all kinds, it may be far less
important that
Phillis once wrote to George Washington (and that he replied) than that
slave-owner John Wheatley and his people remain quite unresearchable,
except,
probably, for any researcher who is on the ground and delving
sceptically into the
church and economic history records
of Boston, Massachusetts. Can anyone can discover, for example, if
Phillis
ever in London or Boston met Nathaniel's fiancee,
Mary
Enderby? It would appear that Phillis would have met Nathaniel's wife
in Boston in early 1774.

One of the problems for
Americans with the
Phillis Wheatley story seems to be that she lived mostly in Boston, and
her owners (at least John W., the senior of the family) were Loyalists.
How Phillis herself (as a freed female slave) might have viewed the
justifications for the American Revolution may well have been somewhat
tortured - in ways that Americans today do not wish to think about?

And so, American Internet discussion of Phillis Wheatley, poet,
remains tragically lopsided. All the indications from
university and college Americana are that this will remain the case,
even at the professorial level.
But today, the internationalism of Net-delivered information makes it
easier to identify and comment on stories which are so
badly-constructed, still, as the story of Phillis Wheatley remains.
(-Dan
Byrnes, Feb 2008, and, it seems likely by Feb. 2008 that more
information will arise on these topics, so the interested
netsurfer should remain prepared to return here - bookmark now.)

1784 - Morris' efforts to open useful trade with the French had limited
success,
Ver Steeg p 1, p. 33, dispute between Holker and Morris interrupted the firm
Turnbull, Marmie and Co.

1784: (Ver Steeg, pp. 187-188), Morris completed his transition from public
financier
to private merchant by November 1784, his private affairs had suffered of
late,
as affairs hampered by a British blockade. Morris still dealt with John
Holker
via William Turnbull and Co, plus Benjamin Harris and Co, Samuel Inglis and
Co, and Thomas Willing, plus Jonathan Hudson now feeble. Severed with John
Ross,
Matthew Ridley had looked after Morris' sons being educated in France, and
here
Ridley dealt via Ridley, Pringle, Holker and Morris, but here, mainly Pringle
and Holker. Morris in Ver Steeg p. 189 interested in ships to China, with
Daniel
Parker of Parker and Co also contractors for the now US army, ship Empress of
China sailed for Canton in January 1784 with ginseng, brandy, wine,
turpentine,
and $20,000 in specie. Morris here invested some $60,000. Morris and
Parker
here also outfitted two ships for Europe, but by the time they got back,
Morris
and Parker had split, partly due to a Morris-Holker dispute. The Dec 1783-Jan
1784 China venture marked Morris re-emerging into private trade. Morris
assisted
a new firm in Baltimore with Tench Tilghman (an aide of Washington, says
Oberholtzer),
this firm enjoyed an almost vast spread of Morris' connections. Morris
meanwhile
had left Turnbull, Marmie and Co of Philadelphia, and Holker withdrew from
Benjamin
Harrison and Co of Richmond Va. Morris and Harrison here formed a new firm,
Harrison, Nicholls and Co. Morris also invested in a new house in New York.
Daniel Parker and Co in severe trouble by May 1784, says Ver Steeg p. 191,
and
owing money to a Holker-connection firm.

1784: Inauguration of the formation of the Shipowner's Society of Britain.
see 27 January, 1824 for its 40th anniversary dinner.

First American consul at Canton is installed in 1784, Major Shaw, and in
1785-86, there were a mere 5 American ships at Canton.

Lane and Fraser (LSF) on 18 February, 1784 wrote to Elias Hasket Derby, maybe
about
shipbuilding at Boston? By the later 1780s it appeared Lane and Fraser were
trying to creep back into trade to the US. Lane, Son and Fraser had earlier sent tea
into the Boston Tea Party situation. (Lost citation)

Circa 1785

Circa 1785: Virginian John Armistead Jnr married to Mary Churchill, her family history.

circa 1785: Virginian John Carter married to Mary Sally Nelson.

No date but guess at 1785: - Chris Maxworthy of Sydney remains interested in merchants J. and
W. Jacob.

Circa 1785

VIP In 1786, half the original stock of the Bank of North America was owned
by Wadsworth and his partner Church, Robert Morris and William Bingham, also
linked to the foreign cargo ventures of William Constable and Co - all the
leading venture capital deals of the day were linked with this whole group.

(Ferguson, Purse, pp. 264-270), by early 1789, Robert Morris' affairs were badly
deteriorated, and Gouv Morris was trying to help him. Gouv. Morris developed an idea to organise
matters
in Europe so that he and his friends could buy (re-finance) the entire
domestic
debt of the US, so he linked with Daniel Parker. They wanted to set up a
group
of capitalists at Antwerp and force an alliance with the "Amsterdam Society"
which included Dutch houses already dealing with Parker. Robert Morris and
associates
would have a third (of the US). this plan much too ambitious, but Gouv Morris
went
to London where he spoke to various capitalists including Barings, who had
already
begun to invest in American securities. Gouv Morris in London dealt with Parker
and a British merchant, Samuel Rogers, plus Francis Baring, Edmund Boehm and
Thomas Hinchman re $600,000 in securities. Craigie and Constable would deal
in New York, Constable drew on Samuel Rogers in London. Gouv Morris then went
back
to the Continent. The existing plan got not much further, but then Morris had
another plan, to buy the American debt to France. But he had much competition
in this. others had had the idea of buying this debt, selling it to Holland
and taking the gains. In 1786, a syndicate of Willinks, Van Staphorsts and
Hubbard
had offered France a sum for the American debt, but that failed as Congress
preferred France to Holland. Later, from 1786, other schemes arose, with
Dutch,
French and even British capitalists. In 1788, American merchants were alerted
by the visit to US of Brissot de Warville, an agent of a Swiss banker,
Stephen
Claviere, who headed a group of capitalists interested in purchasing the US
debt. Warville talked to RMorris and Gouv Morris, William Duer and Jeremiah
Wadsworth.
Parker had earlier talked with Warville. In October 1789, Gouvenour Morris in
Europe
and he talked formally with Necker the head of French finances. Necker had
already
had overtures from Dutch sources. What would Morris, Parker and Le Couteulx
pay? Necker drove GMorris so high that Le Couteulx backed out. The plan
needed
the permission of US govt, and the Amsterdam interests whom GMorris had not
yet fully consulted. Amsterdam then made Necker a different offer. Alexander
Hamilton in US was informed. Unable to go further without Dutch backing,
GMorris
withdrew. Morris now distrusted the Dutch. See Ferguson, Purse, p. 267 Note
36, much of the debt was in fact transferred to Holland between 1790 and
1794,
with eg. an American merchant James Swan involved for about $2 million. All
up, about $11.4 million. due to all this, inflation hit American commerce, a
US bill on London in 100 pounds sterling got only 87 to 95 pounds in US
ports.
Craigie and Constable by 1788-1790 were looking at handling indents and US
states'
debts, Daniel Parker privy to this and Hamilton could not but help leak
details
of what might happen to people who might thus profit.

Circa 1785

Circa 1785: In America re Holland Land Company (the Phelps and Gorham Purchase, or, the
Holland Purchase
by 13 Dutch investors, re the Genesee River area). Jan and Wilhem/Willem
Willink
are Amsterdam bankers for Robert Morris and for US Govt. Some of the
13-in-total
Dutch investors in the Holland Lanc. Co were Wilhelm and Wilhem Jnr Willink,
Jan and Jan Jnr Willink, Nicholas van Staphorst, Pieter van Eaghan, Hendrik
Vollenhoven, Rutger(t) Jan Schimmelpennick, and later, Jan Gabriel van
Staphorst
and Roelif van Staphorst Jnr; Cornelius Vollenhoven, Henrik Saye and Pieter
Stadnitski, all of whom hired general agent Theophilus/Theophile Cazenove,
and
Cazenove was succeeded by Paul Bust, Paoli Busti (1749-1824, who earlier with
an Amsterdam bank) from Milan, Italy, who had married a dr of one of the
Dutch
syndicate members, and worked for the syndicate, resident in America, till he
died in 1824. Land surveyors included brothers Joseph and Benjamin Ellicott;
and later invovled were Americans, William Peacock and Gerrit Boon. See item
also on answers.com. A rambling memoirs http notes others in Holland Land Co
as investors included many members of Willink family, Walrave van Hencklom,
Nicholas van Beeftinghle, Jan van Eeghan, Garvet Schimmelpennick, Rutger Jans
Son, Van Bennebreck. Plus Moses van Campben.

Circa 1786

More to come

Circa 1787

Active 1787, London tobacco merchant Thomas Blane,

1788: America: Wife and the Parents of Dr Charles Dandridge (1788-1823) married to Miss Henry.

Circa 1788

More to come

Circa 1789

1789: New England: Who was Ruth Cunningham (c1824-1789) who married Boston Lawyer James Otis Jnr (1725-1783)?

Active 1790: Virginia: Braxton Carter Moore married to Maria Muse.

Circa 1790

Circa 1790: Maryland: George Lux (nil parents or dates) of Baltimore married to Catharine Biddle (c1762-1789). The Lux family in entirety.

Circa 1791

More to come

Circa 1792

More to come

Circa 1793

1793: London firm Lane, Son and Fraser (LSF): the firm's affairs seemed to be clearing up by
1793, when Bank of England worried about rumours of war with France and so
threw
out Lane's paper, so LSF failed for up to one million pounds, which began a
chain of bankruptcies, yet they were not overdrawn more than 50 pounds. Had
dealt earlier with eg., John Rowe in Boston. (Kellock lists.) By 1793 or so there have been suggestions that some names associated with the firm, or their associates, were friends of first governor of NSW, Arthur Phillip, but it has proved impossible to re-verify any of this. Names in that contetx include Susannah Fletcher (no dates) married to EICo Captain George Richardson (nil parents).

Circa 1794

Circa 1795

1795: Virginia probably: Anne Lightfoot (nil parents) born 1795 married to William Fitzhugh Carter. Also re William Marston Lightfoot (c.1758-1809) married to Lucy Armistead Digges.

1795: India: More on the activities in India of the partners of Fairlie and Fergusson, William Fairlie and John Fergusson. Did they have any interesting names as relatives or staff with the firm?

In 1795, (Oberholtzer, p. 308), an agent of Robert Morris in London
was William Constable. By then, one of Morris' land deal partners was John
Nicholson.

Active 1795: East India Co. merchant of Blackheath, London, John Pascal Larkins. Several men of that same name/family, actually. There is some association with the surname Sampson in the Blackheath/Greenwich area.

Circa 1796

Circa 1797-1798

1797-1798 - Arthur Harrison, London clothier/draper, of 37 Parliament Street, London (long before the C19th redevelopment of that area near Whitehall.) It seems almost nothing is known of him.

1798: Family of Rev DD of Philadelphia, John N. Campbell (1798-1864) married to Ann Robertson Bolling.

1854: Born 1854. America: Herbert Augustine Claiborne Jnr (b1854), the forebears of his father Herbert Augustine Claiborne Snr with wife unknown. Same for John H. Claiborne Jnr married to Helen Elizabeth Langdon Brown, active 1914.

Circa 1916: American John Templeman Coolidge who married Susanna Cunningham.

Below are items still uncollected

And for
example, we now find, reading "popular" US history on the
hugely-criticised C19th New York rentier, former
fur
trader, John Jacob Astor, that Astor had a brother always remaining in
London,
George, who sold musical instruments. We wonder if George acted as any
kind of regular agent for John Jacob, in ways that have not yet been
written up? It would have been an obvious arrangement, but we don't
presently know if it was actually in place. We also didn't know that J.
J. Astor had a quick and quirky sense of humour. Once, when J. J. was
older, a
group of men seeking donations for a charity approached the Astors. One
of J. J's sons happily gave them $100, on the spot, but J.
J. gave
them only $50. They protested mildly, telling him that his son
had given them double that amount. In his accent (Dutch via
Germany, which always made him feel awkward), J. J. replied wittily, "Yes,
but his
father is
a very wealthy man."

Some recent work
for
this website: Earlier
in 2007 the webmaster was uploading
newly-arrived digital
photographs of a wide range of old plantations of Jamaica, ruins from
the
old days of slavery. Other work being considered by the Byrnes/Cozens
research
duo plus e-mailers includes: On William Duer and/or Thomas Willing and
other
financiers associated with "the
financier of the American Revolution", Robert Morris. US merchants
involved in opium trading. Family
names/genealogy
recently revised and readied for upload and/or re-upload to this
website
include: a wide range of pre-Revolutionary family names of Colonial
America, Cunliffe of Liverpool. Wright (bankers of
Nottingham).
Wakefield. And
Fairfax, Cary and Fauntleroy of Virginia, USA. On Nicholas and Jacob
van
Staphorst, Netherlands circa 1780.

Some
merchant networks of interest: US-China merchants 1786-1850, many
involved in opium
trading (not in any particular order or in any particular network). It
should be understood that not all US-China merchants did deal
in opium, though most did. Because of the hunger of China's economy for
silver, to 1827, US merchants paid for their China trading with Spanish
silver dollars from the Spanish West Indies, South America, Portugal or
Gibraltar; after 1827 they paid increasingly in bills drawn on
London.

At times it is hard to put a useful
date on forms of associations,
simply because firms were often composed of family members in various
ways at various times.
Major Shaw the first US Consul to Canton, was with Shaw and
Randall by 1786. From 1795, Thomas Handasyd Perkins and his brother
James Perkins. Captain William Fairchild Magee/Megee of Providence,
Rhode Island. The brothers Sullivan, Joseph and John Dorr by 1800.
James and Benjamin C. Wilcocks by 1804
operated for William Waln and R. H. Wilcocks of Philadelphia. [B. C.
Wilcocks
became US Consul to Canton/China]. Captain Hugh McPherson of
Philadelphia by 1805 took opium
from Smyrna, Turkey to Batavia.

Willing
and Francis by 1805 [Thomas
Willing, former partner of Robert Morris]. Captain Christopher L.
Garritt by 1805. William Waln by 1806. Stephen Girard by 1806. Samuel
Russell. Thomas Handasyd
Perkins. (Ephraim Bumstead was a figure in the early career of T. H.
Perkins.) Joseph
Peabody of Salem. The names Perkins, Bryant and Sturgis. Blights of
Philadelphia to 1811 (? Blights are names very little-mentioned.) John
P. Cushing. By 1812-1815, Joseph Walley, Langdon and Francis Coffin
were operating. Minturn and Champlin linked to their
supercargo William Law by 1816.

John
Jacob Astor of New York
by 1816-1819. James Sturgis and Co. by 1818. Augustine Heard.
Bryant, Paine, Cushing and Higginson. Captain William Sturgis of Bryant
and Sturgis of Boston. Joseph Peabody. Joseph Coolidge (at Bombay).
John Murray Forbes. Augustine Heard of Ipswich. William C. Hunter.
Thomas H. Smith of New York by 1821. By 1822, some Turkish-American
opium was sold in Manila or Java (and any such Manila /
Philippines connections remain very seldom discussed
in the literature, as does any sourcing of silver in the Philippines by
Americans, or indeed, anyone else).

William Gray of
Boston (to Java -
Canton) by 1824. By 1824, Samuel Russell and Philip Ammidon were
Russell and Co., prior to which Ammidon had been an agent for
Brown and Ives of Rhode Island. Thomas H. Smith by 1825. John Donnell
of Baltimore died 1826. Issaverdes and Stith by 1827 (who included the
Greek brothers John B. and George Issaverdes and Griffin Stith a nephew
of John Donnell a Baltimore-China merchant). Robert Bennett Forbes.
Thomas Tunno Forbes (died 1829) of Perkins and Co., which was acquired
by Russell and Co. John Perkins Sturgis. John R. Latimer and James
Latimer.

Joseph Archer of
Philadelphia by 1830. Abbot Abiel Low (a link to Seth Low)
of Russell and Co. as a one-time partner. John N. A. Griswold of N. L.
and G. Griswold of New York, was a brother-in-law of China merchant
John C. Green, an agent for Griswolds of New York. By 1830 were
operating John Webster Perit (a former partner of Samuel Cabot), a
brother of Peletiah Perit of New York. David W. C. Olyphant and Charles
W. King (did not deal opium. Olyphant and Co, operated by 1831, did not
trade opium, and were part of Talbot and Olyphant of New York. Quaker
Nathan Dunn (did not deal opium). Wetmore and Co. became a
successor to Nathan Dunn
and Co. Wetmores operated by 1831 and were headed by William Shepard
Wetmore (anti-opium) and James C. Wetmore; and included Joseph Archer,
son of Samuel Archer of Philadelphia. J. B. Higginson by 1834. John
Cryder by 1834. Russell,
Sturgis and Co. of 1834 were part of Russell and Sturgis, which had
been founded by a Cushing, and included Henry Parkman Sturgis; and
George R. Russell, a son of Jonathan Russell, and a nephew of Philip
Ammidon. Also, variously by now, the names Delano, Low, King
of
Newport, Rhode Island; Edward Carrington of Providence Rhode Island and
Cyrus Butler plus Carrington's brothers-in-law T. C. Hoppins and
Benjamin Hoppins.

Queries to this website, mostly via
Google, and
evident from our hit-counter system, indicate that some netsurfers are
curious about the following names or operations we also are unfamiliar
with: W. H. Webb
shipyard, Liverpool Line;
re Captain Cotton Dent; Deberdt
genealogy (UK); Gosling's bank/bankers (UK, genealogy,
difficult.)
On William
de Merle, bankers (of whom we've never heard at all).

The approach of this website is to
examine
merchants in terms of the networks they are part of, where
concentration on individual merchants is reduced. Merchant
networks tend to work in an organic way. They behave, they adapt or
die. They expand or contract, or change in response to new
opportunities, in response to the loss of old opportunities. They can
act to exclude members who behave badly. They can actively recruit new
members or passively ignore those who want to become new members. They
can fade away as technology changes. Members of networks can engage in
political activity to advance their interests. Merchant
networks can also, as shown by
The Anglo-Chinese Opium Wars (circa 1839, as those tragedies have been
called), cause serious conflict on the world stage, if not
prevented by the responsible foreign policies of their home
nation(s).

Military Contractors of the American War 1776-1783

This table has been developed for the book being co-written by Dan Byrnes and Ken Cozens. However, an Internet situation arises in 2011 which deserves comment. In January 2011 while we netsurfed on the names given below, we found that information on many of them is limited or not available at all. Yet there are many contemporary complaints on the Internet about the use by the USA of military and/or security-gathering contractors working for the USA in the wars of Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Meanwhile, and it appears that a modern fashion is afoot, it appears that historical information on the contractors used by either side during the American War of Independence has never yet been fully gathered -- which is plainly absurd. The point would seem to be that as a professional stance, historians remain coy about naming military contractors! Therefore, we provide at least some of the relevant information here. - Ed

For American names, the table below draws on E. James Ferguson and John Catanzariti, The Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3, 1 October 1781-10 January 1782. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977. (These Robert Morris Papers are posted on the Internet in full. We have used here only one of the four volumes of The Papers of Robert Morris.)

For British names -- The listing is drawn from Norman Baker, Government and Contractors: The British Treasury and War Supplies, 1775-1783. University of London and The Athlone Press, 1971. Contractors are here given in roughly the chronological order of their services being recruited by their government.

1770

1770: (Baker p. 29), Anthony Bacon took a new contract to supply troops in West Indies. In 1770, Anthony Bacon (who had a cousin Anthony Richardson) gave up a West Indies contract and was replaced by John Durand, who had returned from India in the 1760s and was an EICo ship's husband, also did timber importing. A few of Durand's ships were co-owned by other contractors such as William James and Arnold Nesbitt. (Baker, pp. 175ff) On specie contractors for military, Harley and Drummond who got 10,000 pounds for this per year between 1770-1783.

1771

No information compiled here

1772

No information compiled here

1773

1773: Contractor Kender Mason (had a son Henry a partner with Henry Blundell). Kender Mason died in 1792, had been provisioning troops in East Florida since 1764.

1774

1774: (Baker, p. 3) Anthony Merry (difficult to trace) merchant of London, shipped cattle to America date not given. (Oddly, there is an Anthony Merry later a British deputy-secretary for War who seems to have no link to the earlier Anthony.) (Baker, p. 184), Mr George Garnier gets a patent (contract) as Apothecary General to military to supply medicine, later conducted by his son George Charles Garnier who used sub-agents John Truesdale (Apothecary in Ordinary to the King) and Joseph Partridge.
(Baker, p. 170), From 1767, John Biggin (untraced so far) had a contract to supply rum to Jamaica.

1775

1775: (Baker, p. 201) In 1775, Thomas Pownall has contract for supply of Indian goods, that is, goods for trade with Indians in America, this business by 1777 was in the hands of William Knox (who got some supplies from Israel Mauduit), sending them to Sir John Johnstone in America. (Baker, pp. 33-34), mid-to-late 1775, aspiring contractor William James (an EICo director) contractor was writing to politician Charles Jenkinson and in early 1776 James was supplying Canada. Robert Jones (difficult to trace) was a contractor for Nova Scotia to about 1775, and used the Cork merchant house of Cornefords and an agent at Nova Scotia, Butler. (Baker, p. 27), By early 1775, contractors were Arnold Nesbitt, Adam Drummond and Moses Franks for various garrisons of mainland colonies. (Moses Franks had brothers Aaron and Napthali, all noted in Anglo-American Jewish family history ranged around New York, Philadelphia and London.) John Stephenson (difficult to trace) and John Blackburn (difficult to trace which individual is this person) for West Florida, Witter Cuming (died 1775, difficult to trace) and Kender Mason had East Florida contracts. And John Stephenson and Richard Vernon Sadleir (brewer and banker at Southampton) for troops in Nova Scotia. Edward Coddrington (sic) and Robert Jones had West Florida and Nova Scotia. (Baker, p. 79), August 1775, Charles Jenkinson is approached by Cork firm of Carleton and Cossart about supply contracts but they were unsuccessful.

1776

1776: (Baker, p. 222), in 1776, only two Scotsmen had military contracts. (Baker, p. 26), Since 1766, [Arnold] Nesbitt (difficult to trace), [Adam] Drummond and [] Moses] Franks (which firm banked with Thomas Coutts and Co., Adam Drummond being a partner of Coutts) had had the contract for the mainland colonies and Quebec. Arnold Nesbitt had an uncle Albert (difficult to trace) in business in London. By early 1776, (Baker, p. 28), Nesbitt, Drummond and Franks contracted to supply 12,000 troops of mainland colonies, via Cork. More contracts in early 1776 were made with the partnership of John Henniker, William Devaynes, Edward Wheler (had a relation, William Mills), and George Wombwell (with chiefly EICo connections, Wombwell was brother-in-law to Sir Walter Rawlinson) for 12,000 troops; and with Anthony Bacon, John Amyand (died 1780 aged 29 and Amyand had a brother named due to a name change, as Sir George Cornewall, Robert Mayne (had a brother Lord Newhaven) and John Durand (difficult to trace) (who dealt with Cork merchants Bensons (not yet traced) at Cork and also Michael Coppinger (not yet traced) at Cork and also Norman & Long (not yet traced)) would each supply 3000 men. Plus, for Quebec/Canada, a contract was made with William James (ex- EICo ship's captain during Seven Years War), Abel Smith (of bankers Smith Payne Smith), William Baynes (to be replaced in 1779 by John Roberts). Note that Baynes and John Roberts (difficult to trace) were brothers-in-law who had traded to Portugal) and Richard Atkinson (they worked 1776-1779) to supply 12,000 troops in Canada. Atkinson had a brother Matthew who was a receiver of land tax. (Baker, p. 33), the Treasury clerk chiefly responsible for handling contracts and answering to politician/Treasury Secretary John Robinson was James Royer, though for timeframes unspecified. (Baker, p. 223), Neither Atkinson by September 1775 nor his partners had any experience with military contracts, but they were approached by John Robinson and by September 1776 they were employed by Treasury; Atkinson had
married into the Robinson family.
(Baker, p. 91), 1776, Treasury got freight/transport from Mure, Son and Atkinson with ships supervised by Robert Gordon (died 1784) who was appointed Commissary at Cork in February 1776, (Robert Gordon, who may not have been entirely honest) was married to a sister of General Cunninghame). Gordon was succeeded in that role by John Marsh earlier a consul-general at Malaga. (Baker, p. 96), in 1776, the Commissary at New York is Daniel Chamier (who was possibly married to Achsah Ridgely who was probably an American).
(Baker, p. 162), About March 1776 Treasury decided to issue Jamaica rum to troops, the contract went to Richard "Rum" Atkinson, including some for Canada. (Baker, p. 173), Treasury later found out Atkinson was using produce from his own plantations for rum, and was shipping rum to America in vessels owned by he or his partners (Mure, his partner had a son on Jamaica). Other rum contracts went to Sir James Cockburn, James Bogle French, John Blackburn, Thomas Burfoot (difficult to trace). Cockburn had married a daughter of London merchant Henry Douglas (difficult to trace).
(Baker, p. 102), September 1776, Commissary-General in Canada is Nathaniel Day (difficult to trace).

1776: Mariner Captain John Green (1736-1796), in 1781 at the time in Mill Prison in England with Morris trying to have him freed, later the captain of the first US ship to China, Empress of China. Born in England or Ireland. Regarded in the family as John Green Snr. Married Alice Kollock of Delaware, daughter of Jacob Kollock a shipping merchant of Delaware. Green had sailed before the Revolution for Willing and Morris, and then been Captain in the Continental Navy. Later, Empress of China's two supercargoes, Samuel Shaw and Thomas Randall were former officers in US Continental Army. Green wrote to RM at Office of Finance on 20 November 1781, at the time imprisoned in Mill Prison in England. See p. 110 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, (Eds.), Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

1776: Brigadier John Glover (1732-1797) of Marblehead. Son of a house carpenter, became a fisherman, became a cordwainer and rum trader, then ship owner and merchant. Of Continental Army, latterly had a role guarding Hudson River against the British, failed to get a job in Federal Government, so served in local offices. Had perhaps the first privateer used in the American Revolution, schooner Hannah, which was authorized by Washington, and Washington esteemed Glover's services, Hannah perhaps became the first vessel of the US navy! He had letter from RM at Office of Finance of 22 October 1781. See p. 101 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3. Glover's own wikipedia page.

1777

1777: (Baker, p. 164), By 1 April 1777 Joseph Loring of New York had contracted to supply 350,000 gallons of rum but he was merely an agent of Richard Atkinson and/or Thomas Burfoot. (Baker, p. 165), to the end of the war, rum contracts were taken by Gregory and Turnbull (some information available) and also Grove and Hood (who are untraced so far).

Circa 1777: President of Congress John Hanson (1721-1783). Somewhat under-appreciated. A Maryland merchant. Sheriff of Charles County Maryland, then a delegate to Continental Congress. First of the Congress' presidents, so is he then to be seen as the first President of USA? (Which dubiously-identified role as "first president" is also given on one US website to Declaration Signer Samuel Huntington.) His own wikipedia page. RM at Office of Finance wrote to him as President of Congress on 9 November 1781, see p. 169 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, (Eds.), Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3. Hanson helped establish US' first postal service, first consular postings, chartering of a national bank, progress to first census, uniform system of coinage. Signed a treaty with Holland re US debts to Holland. Died a year after retiring as Congress president. Hanson was son of farmer-planter Samuel Hanson and Elizabeth Story, parents also of Lt-Colonel of the Revolution, Samuel Hanson. John Hanson married Jane Contee.

1777: John Holker Junior (1745-1822). Contractor, naval. By 1777, he and his father were involved with helping American commissioners in Paris to find supplies. He came to America with the first French Minister to US, Conrad Alexander Gearaud. Then became agent of the French navy in American ports and French consul at Philadelphia. Supplied arms and provisions to French fleet. By 1780 he was consul-general for Pennsylvania, Delawere, New Jersey and New York and became involved with Morris, Turnbull and Peter Marmie, which broke a French rule against officials engaging in private trade, so he resigned in 1781 and continued to supply Continental troops. He speculated in western lands, paper money, ironworks in Pittsburgh, distilleries, saw mills, salt works (all as a website relates). Was tangled with Robert Morris by late 1783. Holker had an associate John Barclay during 1807-1816. See as a Google Books Result, from New York Before Chinatown: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture, by John Kuo Wei Tehen. There formed the "American-India Company" (a privately-owned version of European East-Indies companies), where John Ledyard's visions inspired Robert Morris, Daniel Parker, John Holker, William Duer and others to trade in the East. Morris failed to include Ledyard in actual activities for the China trade. Ledyard (quite unwisely) later decided to walk across Russia across Siberia, to find a quick route to China. Holker two years before had tried to talk Morris into an "America-India" type company, Morris by 1783 was being criticised re his private dealings, so he moved on the Empress of China scheme in great secrecy. The America-India company planned for six ships, two for Europe, two for China, one for n/w America and the last for French Polynesia. Only two ships eventuated, Empress of China and Emporer of China. Morris put his last profits from war efforts into Empress of China. Duer was going to be supercargo but withdrew (possibly distrusting Daniel Parker). Parker's claimed Boston associates did not appear, Holker's French merchant banker connections became wary, Morris possibly used US government funds in his hands, put into his private account, to cover his part of the Empress voyages. Parker hired Samuel Shaw without consulting anyone else, Shaw being secretary of the Society of Cincinatti, and then Shaw brought in fellow Society member Thomas Randall as second supercargo. Empress's ships surgeon was another Society member, Dr. Robert Johnston of Philadelphia, who knew a deal about ginseng handling. Parker ordered a great amount of ginseng from Turnbull, Marmie and Co. of Philadelphia. At one point, by 1780, Deane was working on mast supplies, major partners being John Holker and Jonathan Williams (nephew of Benjamin Franklin). Jonathan Williams (nephew of Benjamin Franklin) was blamed for money-losing. In 1778, one Jean-Daniel Schweighauser took over as chief American commercial agent for Atlantic ports. Handling prize ships. Chaumont had earlier done some such work. See France and America in the Revolutionary Era: The Life of Jacques-Donatien Leray de Chaumont, by Thomas J. Schaeper. Holker reported to Chaumont, who owned or operated 17 ships during the Revolution. Chaumont got his money from Grand, the French financier, up to 1.65 million livres and supplied saltpetre, arms, clothing, various other materials.

1778

1778: (Baker, p. 30), in 1778, the British troops under General William Howe were supplied by partnership of Benjamin Smith (brother-in-law of John Robinson), William Fitzhugh and Simon Halliday (to be replaced by Jemes Powis who was replaced by Richard Peacock who is difficult to trace). (Simon Halliday had a father-in-law, William Bythesea who is not easy to trace.) Smith, Fitzhugh and Halliday used a sub-agent, Mr Grant. Fitzhugh had spent 10 years or more at Aleppo for the Levant Co. (Baker, p. 88), dry goods provisioner Thomas Farrer (died 1788) (who had an agent at Cowes named James Mackenzie) is dealing with Smith Fitzhugh and Halliday and with Robert Mayne and James Powis.

Lt-Colonel Ephraim Blaine (1741-1804). In 19 February 1778 he was appointed commissary-general of purchases, an office he held for three years. He had an estate, Middlesex. The Blaines were Scots-Irish Americans. He and first wife Rebecca Galbraith had eight children. He had a letter from Robert Morris of 4 October 1781 in p. 17 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3. See his own wikipedia page.

1779

1779: (Baker, p. 16), some matters for contractors are modified by Sir Philip Jennings Clerke's Contractor's Bill of 12 February 1779. (Some information arises on Clerke). (Baker, p. 35), Arnold Nesbitt died in 1779 and his nephew John Nesbitt took his place as a contractor. (Baker, p. 125), suppliers Bensons at Cork are reported to have failed in 1779.

1780

1780: (Baker, p. 30), in 1780 appeared two new contractor names, Thomas French (small-timer), and James Bogle French (small-timer, earlier had only a rum contract, had some "substantial American interests") James' Bogle French's original name seems to have been James Bogle, who changed his surname to French after marrying Elizabeth French from Barbados, daughter probably of Nathaniel French but it is uncertain. (Baker, p. 50), Christopher Potter (an MP by 1781, and his offers were highly competitive commercially, but is not easy to trace). Potter had an associate, Aaron Moody of Southampton. Potter by April 1780 becomes a new contractor name, applied unsuccessfully for army contracts but was given naval contracts by April 1780. Aaron Moody is difficult to trace.
(Baker, p. 45), a new contractor name appearing by end of 1780 is Lawrence/Laurence Cox (difficult to trace) who was connected with Smith, Fitzhugh and Peacock (Peacock an insurance broker and shipping agent had a brother Marmaduke, both difficult to trace).
(Baker, p. 50), appears a new contractor name John Whitelock in late 1780.

1781

1781: (Baker, p. 53), new names appearing as British contractors are Messrs [John] Dearman, [Andrew] Jourdaine and [Richard Shaw] by 1781. Andrew Jourdaine is difficult to trace. Richard Shaw is difficult to trace. Dearman often imported provisions from Ireland, and supplied the Africa Co. Dearman (who was from an extensive lineage available on the Internet) possibly sub-contracted with military contracts to Gibraltar with or for contractors Fonnereau and Burrell. (Baker, p. 24), Daniel Wier (difficult to trace although mentioned in army records), by 4 September 1781 is British Commissary-General at New York

Meanwhile, on the American side ... names of interest who sent letters to or received letters from Robert Morris at his Office of Finance in 1781 included: Samuel Bean. Little-known. He was a pre-war correspondent of Willing and Morris at Jamaica. By March 1782 he described himself as deputy auditor and muster master of the [US] southern army. He wrote to RM at Office of Finance by 19 November 1781, just back from England, see p. 205 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

1781: Joseph Borden Jnr (1719-1791). Of Bordertown, a wealthy man who became a Revolutionary Patriot. He had two sons and four drs. Bordern was son of Joseph Senior (1687-1765) and Susannah Grover and was married to Mary or Elizabeth Rogers. His daughter Ann married Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791), Judge and a Signer of the American Declaration of Independence. Ann's sister Mary married Thomas McKean (1734-1817) who is noted below. Borden was Continental loan officer of New Jersey and had a letter of 6 October 1781 from RM. See p. 27 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

1781: Loyalist then Patriot, Tench Coxe (1755-1824). An ex-Loyalist merchant of Philadelphia, future political economist and nationalist, and apparently a man with wide interests. See his own wikipedia page. By age 21 he was a partner of merchants Coxe and Furman. Early was a loyalist in the British army of General Howe. Was later arrested, paroled, became Patriot. By 11 September 1789 was assistant secretary of American Treasury. Became a Federalist then a Democrat-Republican, later regarded as a Tory rat and a turncoat but was rewarded by President Jefferson. He championed use of tariffs to protect US Manufactures. Can perhaps be credited as father of the US cotton industry and was first to import an Arkwright machine. With Alexander Hamilton was an early promoter of industrialization, and with Hamilton co-wrote a 1791 Report on Manufactures. Tench was son of William Coxe and Mary Francis (1729-1800) daughter of lawyer Francis Tench Snr. (1705-1758) and Elizabeth Turbutt. Mary's brother Francis Tench Jnr. (1731-1821) married Anne McCall Willing, (1733-1781), daughter of merchant Charles Willing (1710-1790), and Anne Shippen, and Ane McCall's brother Thomas Willing (1731-1821) was the merchant-partner of Robert Morris. Francis Jnr's son Thomas William Francis (1767-1815) married a daughter of this Thomas Willing, Dorothy (1772-1842). William Coxe's daughter and sister of Tench Coxe, Sarah, married Pennsylvania Attorney-General and Loyalist, Andrew Allen (1740-1825) See http://www.groserfamilies.com/ Tench Coxe married Catherine McCall, daughter of Philadelphia merchant-industrialist Samuel MCall (1721-1762) and his first wife, Anne Searle (d.1757). Catherine's sister Anne married Thomas Willing, the partner of Robert Morris. Coxe seems to be the same man writing about an offer re Indiana Company's lands to RM at Office of Finance before 13 November 1781, when RM replied, (an offer RM did not take up) see p. 177 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

1781: Major-General Nathanael Greene (1742-1786). Nathanael was son of Quaker merchant of Rhode Island Nathaniel Greene (1707-1768) of Rhode Island and his second wife Mary Mott, and married Catherine Littlefield daughter of a member of Rhode Island Legislature, John Littlefield and Phoebe Ray. The Ray's were "a political family". Phoebe Ray's sister Anna married Colonial Governor of Rhode Island Samuel Ward and Ann'a sister Catharine married Rhode Island Governor William Green (1731-1809) on whom see below. Nathanael by 3 October 1781 had letter from Robert Morris re money for Greene's army and mentioning money from France which has just arrived via Colonel John Laurens, a matter in which la Luzerne was implicated. See p. 13 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3. Cf, the Papers of General Nathanael Greene, from University of North Carolina Press. He to the end of the war helped to pacify South Carolina.

1781: An official at Boston for naval/marine affairs was John Brown, nil information.

1781: Stephen Ceronio at Jamaica, little information, he was an agent to assist with organizing American privateers to harrass the British. Was connected with Bernard Lavaud who had a similar role and Ceronio was let down by Lavaud.

Pennsylvania lawyer, born in Northern Ireland, Stephen Chambers (1750-1789). Freemason from his days in Ireland. Arrived in Pennsylvania about 1775. Attorney in Sunbury, Northumberland County. He is Irish-born lawyer, later of Lancaster County Pennsylvania and a Freemason there. Some military experience. Owned several farms, had an interst in an ironworks. Voted to ratify the Constitution. An original member of Pennsylvania branch of Society of Cincinnati. Died in May 1789 after a pistol duel. Left a widow and several children notnamed. Had a letter from Robert Morris of 3 October 1781. See p. 12 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

1781: Philadelphia merchant/financier, Tench Francis Jnr (1731-1821). He was married to Anne McCall Willing (1733-1781) a product of the lineages of McCall and Thomas Willing the partner of Robert Morris. Tench's son Thomas Willing Francis married Dorothy Willing, daughter of the said Thomas Willing. RM at Office of Finance has a contract with Tench Friancis Jnr, see RM on this on 28 December 1781, re contract with Tench Francis and Matthias Slough to supply army posts, a contract which was unsatisfactorily performed, RM had complaints about it in January and February 1782. See pp. 454ff of Ferguson and Catanzariti, (Eds.), Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

General Horatio Gates (1728-1806). He wrote to RM at Office of Finance on 15 Sept 1781 and was replied to in November 1781, see p. 306 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, (Eds.), Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

Colonel Matthias Slough (1732-1812) was son of innkeeper Jacob Slough and lived mostly in Lancaster County. Matthias married Mary Gibson, daughter of George Gibson (1708-1761) an innkeeper and Martha his wife of Lancaster County, who were also parents of General John Gibson of the American Revolution, brother of Colonel George Gibson of the Revolution. Matthias was colonel of a battallion. Matthias was partner in 1781 with Tench Francis Jnr with contracts to supply army posts, contracts complained of as unsatisfactory. Item at http://www.archive.org/stream/, text of Letters of Col. Matthias Slough to Robert Morris. Papers read before Lancaster County Bisirical, Friday 5 March 1920, Vol. XXIV, No. 3, by Hon. Chas. I. Landis. Slough in 1778 had written up to ten letters to Robert Morris, not so much business letters as reports of doings of personal favours. One letter was regarding hemp and indigo.

1781: William Greene (1731-1809) as second governor of Rhode Island. See his own wikipedia page. RM at Office of Finance wrote to him on 3 November 1781. See p. 110 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, (Eds.), Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

1781: Major-General William Heath (1737-1814). Member Society of Cincinnati. He was in command of Continental Army in lower Hudson River region and had letter from Robert Morris of 4 October 1781. See p. 21 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3. See Heath's own wikipedia page. Heath was son of Samuel Heath and Elizabeth Payson and married Sarah Lockwood.
Cf., online, William Heath, Memoirs of Major-General William Heath, by Himself, edited by William Abbatt, To which is added, The Accounts of The Battle of Bunker Hill, by Generals Dearborn, Lee and Wilkinson. New York, 1901.

Major-General Alexander McDougall (1732-1786). His family moved to America New York in 1738. Later a commander at West Point, and had letter from RM at Office of Finance 25 October 1781. See p. 110 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, (Eds.), Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

1781: Thomas McKean (1734-1817). Of Delaware. He was related to wife of Declaration Signer Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791) as follows. McKean married wife1 Mary Borden whose sister Ann married Hopkinson. Mary Borden's son Joseph Borden McKean (1764-1826) was attorney-general of Pennsylvania who married Hannah Miles daughter of Brig-General Samuel Miles and Catharine Wistar. Joseph Borden McKean's sister Ann became the second wife of Andrew Buchanan (1766-1811) whose second wife was Caroline Virginia Marylanda Johnson a daughter of the early US Consul to Britain, the well-known Joshua Johnson (1742-1802) and his wife a Londoner Catherine Nuth. McKean married wife2 Sarah Armitage. McKean was member of Society of the Cincinnati. Lawyer and politician, had studied under a lawyer cousin, David Finney, in Delaware. Presbyterian in religion. Signer of American Declaration of Independence. He had a daughter Letitia who married Buchanan. Went into business young and opened branches in Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Became President of Congress and by 1 October 1781 is dated letter to him as such from Robert Morris in Finance. See p. 5 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3. See his own wikipedia page.

1781: James Milligan. (Little information so far.)

1781: Clothier-General of the Continental Army John Moylan (1745-1799). He had four sons, none of whom later settled in America. Lived mostly in Cork Ireland after the Revolution. Shipping merchant to Cadiz before 1781. John was brother of Patriot Colonel Stephen Moylan (1737-1811). John wrote to RM at Office of Finance on 15 October 1781 and RM replied on 2 November 1781, to him as clothier-general of the Continental Army. See p. 110 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, (Eds.), Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

1781: Governor Virginia Thomas Nelson Jnr (1738-1789) a Signer of the American Declaration. Thomas Jnr was grandson of Tom "Scotch" Nelson and a first son of William Nelson (1711-1772) of Yorktown and Elizabeth Burwell, and this William's children married to the Virginian planter eliteas did the broader Nelson family in general. Thomas Jnr is seen as "General" in an item on www.archive.org/stream/ USA/Virginia http by John Marshall at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/%7Emarshall/esmd207.htm and in series, for Carter. Stella Hardy genealogy, p. 113. http://www.angelfire.com/realm3/ruvignyplus/ for Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal. Planter soldier and statesman from Yorktown Virginia. The son Thomas (born 1764) of Thomas Jnr married Frances Burwell Page daughter of Revolutioanry Patriot and governor of Virginia John Page (1743-1808). See his own wikipedia page. He is Governor of Virginia (succeeding Thomas Jefferson as such) and as such has letter from RM at Office of Finance of 16 October 1781. See p. 68 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

1781: Government offical Joseph Pennell. (Little information so far.)

1781: army Quartermaster-General Charles Pettit (1736-1806). Iron merchant. See his own wikipedia page. Lawyer-merchant from New Jersey and Philadelphia. Former assistant quartermaster-general, was once a partner with Nathaniel Green and others in an iron works which supplied shell and shot to army, became interested in Bank of North America. RM at Office of Finance wrote to him on 12 December 1781. See p. 380 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, (Eds.), Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

1781: Timothy Pickering (Jnr.) (1745-1829). Son of Timothy Pickering Snr and Mary Wingate, also parents of Lucy Pickering who married distiller and foreign merchant using shipping, Captain Israel Dodge. Timothy Jnr married Rebecca White, daughter of Benjamin White and Elizabeth Miller. Timothy's family had been five generations in New England. Lawyer, patriot, soldier, pamphleteer. In 1783 was one of several planners for a north-west territory which would exclude slavery. He once presented ideas for what became West Point military academy. Friend/partner in 1783 of Samuel Hodgdon, a Philadelphia merchant. A noted Francophobe. Massachusetts Senator. Once had large land speculations re Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. Linda Minor says he is member of Harvard "Essex Junto". Cf, Google Books Result, Junius P. Rodriquez, The Louisiana Purchase. Some regard him later as one of The Essex Junto composed of a Massachusetts associaiton of High Federalists uninterested in what Jeffersonsians did. They supported Alexander Hamitlon in 1798 re his nomination as a senior major-general, and worked against Adams' re-election in 1800, challenged Jefferson's embargo of 1807-1809 and in 1803 and 1814 advocated New England's secession. Similar Federalist groups were Charleston's Mutton Chop Club and New York's Friendly Club and Sub-Rosa Society. The acknowledged Essex Junto men were Timothy Pickering, Fisher Ames, George Cabot, Francis Dana, Nathan Dane, Benjamin Goodhue, Stephen Higginson, Jonathan Jackson,John Lowell, Theophilus Parsons, Israel Thorndike, Nathan Tracy. All were born 1745-1758 from prosperous NE families. The Essex Junto men wished to see a less individualistic, more organic social form, and a more deferential society with groups to defer to. Some of them feared a Republican-Jeffersonian conspiracy to install Jefferson as president for life. Believed the Louisiana Purchase was a step to add another slave state to the Union. Pickering preferred secession to a Jeffersonian ascendancy and had a vision of a new Federalist confederacy sponsored by Great Britain and composed of New England, New York, New Jersey and Canada. In 1804 then, Pickering and CT's Roger Griswold supported Aaron Burr for governor of New York. Hamilton disdained ideas of secession however and so supported Burr's rival, Morgan Lewis. In 1814 arose more suspicion of the Essex Junto involvement in secession re the Hartford Convention, so they were excoriated again just as many of them were retiring - and as the phrase entered the American political lexicon. Pickering was a Revolutionary Quartermaster-General. Re letter from RM of 16 October 1781. See p. 67 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

1781: Army Paymaster-General John Pierce (died 1788). He was from Connecticut. Revolutionary Paymaster-General of army. RM at Office of Finance wrote to him on 21 December 1781. See p. 420 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, (Eds.), Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3 .The partner of Matthew Ridley for flour purcahses for army Mark Pringle (died 1826) of Baltimore. (Surprisingly little-known.)

1781: President of Pennsylvania Joseph Reed (1741-1785). See his own wikipedia page. Philadelphia merchant, lawyer and patriot. He is once President of Pennsylvania and as such has letter from RM of 10 October 1781. See p. 42 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3. Reed was married to Esther de Berdt, daughter of the colonial agent for Massachusetts, Dennis De Berdt of London (1693-1770) and Martha Symons.

1781: New York merchant Comfort Sands (1747-1834) and his brothers Joshua and Richardson re the contract they had taken to supply the West Point military establishment. Comfort was son of John Sands and Elizabeth Cornell and married Sarah Dodge and their daughter Cornelia married New York financier Nathaniel Prime (1768-1840). Comfort Sands was a large shipowner. (Cf, writings by Walter Barrett Clerk on Merchants of Old New York.) RM at Office of Finance wrote to him on 6 December 1781, re a contract for the supply of West Point. See p. 342 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, (Eds.), Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3. Joshua Sands, Merchant, Collector of Port of New York. His own wikipedia page. Richardson Sands (1754-1783) was married to Lucretia Ledyard, daughter of the Mayor of Hartford CT, John Ledyard and Mary Austin. This Lucretia Ledyard also married merchant and major-general Ebenezer Stevens (1751-1823). Joshua Sands (1772-1825), one-time Collector of Port of New York, married Ann Ascough, daughter of British army surgeon Richard Ascough. Joshua's children married well into the post-revolutionary eastern establishment.

1781: New York delegate to Continental Congress Melancthon Smith (1744-1798). His wife1 Sarah died in 1770. Merchant-lawyer, adviser to George Clinton. Was rather savage on New York Loyalists. Anti-slavery. He later broke anti-Federalist ranks. New York delegate to Continental Congress. His own wikipedia page. He was associated with Andrew Craigie and William Duer. RM at Office of Finance wrote to him at New York re a contract (Smith plus Jonathan Lawrence) re army and supply of posts at Poughkeepsie and also supply of prisoners that Smith has taken with Joanthan Lawrence on 21 December 1781 (a contract later held by William Duer). See p. 110 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, (Eds.), Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3. After the Revolution Smith returned to merchant life, bought Tory lands. Speculated in govt securities and bonds. See http://www.antonymaitland.com/hptext/hp028.txt On Jonathan Lawrence. Probably the one who died 1816? Difficult to trace.

1781: Governor of Connecticut Jonathan Trumbull Snr (1710-1785). He was married to Faith Robinson, daughter of a clergyman and had daughters Faith who married General Jedediah Huntington (1743-1818) and Mary who married Declaration Signer William Williams (1731-1811) plus son Jonathan Trumbull Jnr (1740-1809) who became second Speaker of US House of Reps and a governor of Connecticut. RM at Office of Finance wrote to him on 7 November 1781. See p. 161 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, (Eds.), Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

1781: General Anthony Wayne (1745-1796). Had early training as a surveyor and surveyed coast of Nova Scotia. Was at Valley Forge battle. Delegate to a state convention ratifying the US Constitution. In 1781 he suffered a mutiny re pay and conditions, perhaps the worst of the American Revolution and he had to dismiss half his men. His own wikipedia page. General "Mad Anthony" Wayne. Online item, Colonial Families [often Quakers]) of Philadelphia at www.archive.org.stream/ Is noted in 10,000 Famous Freemasons, said to be a Mason but no proof for this. He wrote to RM at Office of Finance about 26 October 1781 re surrender of Lord Cornwallis. See p. 110 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, (Eds.), Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

1781: Continental loan officer at New York Abraham Yates Jnr (1724-1796). He has nephew Robert Yates and grandsons Chancellor John Lansing Jnr and Abraham G. Lansing. His own wikipedia page. Patriot leader. He was Continental loan officer at New York, and had letter from RM at Office of Finance on 30 November 1781. See p. 304 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, (Eds.), Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3. Cf., Stefan Bielinski, Abraham Yates Jnr, and the New Political Order in Revolutionary New York. Albany, New York State American Revolution Bicentennial Commission, 1975.

1781: New York merchant Richard Yates (no dates yet). Confusingly, one needs to ask, is he a patriot or Loyalist? Perhaps was the son of Joseph Yates and Maria Dunbar? Did he import from Europe and East Indies? Was he of firm Yates and Pollock, that is with George Pollock (1762-1820) of Philadelphia related to Patriot Oliver Pollock? George Pollock married Yates' daughter Catherine, daughter of of "the formidable" Catherine Brass, re Mrs Yates' portrait by Gilbert Stuart c.1793/1794. Richard Yates was one of the list of RM's pre-war correspondents for New York, a Loyalist but did some services for RM re prisoners, see p. 13 of Ferguson and Catanzariti, Papers of Robert Morris 1781-1784. Vol. 3.

October 1781: (See pp. 97-98 of E. James Ferguson and John Catanzariti, The Papers of Robert Morris 1781-184. Vol. 3, 1 October 1781-10 January 1782. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977.) Here, just before Matthew Ridley escorted Morris' two sons to France for their education, Morris wrote for Ridley a list of the pre-war correspondents of Willing, Morris and Co. It should be noted that before 1776, Matthew Ridley had been the Baltimore agent for the London-based convict contractors, John Stewart (died 1772) and Duncan Campbell (1726-1803), the Campbell who became the overseer of the Thames River prison hulks. The Willing and Morris pre-war-time correspondendents were: London, John Motteux and Co., Messrs David Strachan and Co., Messrs Gregory and Turnbull "who could point to others", (these must have been partners of London alderman George Mackenzie Macaulay (1750-1803) before he joined them!), Bristol is Richard Champion Esqr, Only the correspondence of RM with Richard Champion survives in archives. See G. H. Guttridge (Ed.), The American Correspondence of a Bristol Merchant, 1766-1776, Letters of Richard Champion. Berkeley, California, 1934. Liverpool is Thomas Tarleton and also John Dobson (difficult to trace), Falmouth is George Croker Fox and Sons, New York is Andrew Elliot (1728-1797) and also Richard Yates. Elliot was a Loyalist, later an acting-governor of New York. Early he was a Scots emigrant-trader, with an advance of 700 pounds to Philadelphia, became receiver-general of New York. Returned to Scotland. He was an uncle of Gilbert Elliot a close associate of Bute (the advisor of George III) and a trusted servant of George III, and became collector of the port of New York in Namier, England in the Age of the American Revolution, p. 266. See Burke's Peerage and Baronetage for Southesk, 1938 edn. pp. See his own wikipedia page. thepeerage.com. On Barbados is Charles Willing, At Antigua is Messrs Willock and Moorson, At Jamaica is Messrs Cuthberts, At St Kitts is Ulysses Lynch (sometimes mentioned on websites but too briefly), At Madeira is Scott, Pringle, Cheap and Co., At Lisbon is Messrs Robert Paisley and Co (hard to trade), Paulo Jorge and Messrs Edward Burn and Sons (somewhat traceable). This pre-war list is discussed in detail elsewhere in this Timelines series - Ed

1782

1782: (Baker, p. 25), George Cherry is Naval agent (difficult to trace) for dry provisions at Cowes by March 1782. (Baker, p. 25), by March 1782 the British Commissary in Canada is Nathaniel Day, a personal friend with General John Burgoyne (Day is difficult to trace though mentioned in military records). (Baker, p. 35), in 1782, contracts of John Hennicker and Kender Mason (son Henry) were passed to their sons. Circa 1782: (Baker, p. 224), MP Christopher Potter had held navy contracts for biscuits and bread, and with Aaron Moody owned a steam-mill/bakehouse complex at Southampton. (Baker, p. 212), in 1782, banker Thomas Harley is chief Treasury agent for supply of clothing and blankets to military, and was replaced as such by Thomas Burfoot of Barge Yard Bucklersbury. William Worsfold of Mark Lane London also supplied some military clothing/bedding. (Baker, p. 204), from August 1782 the British Commissary-General in New York was Brook Watson (later a London alderman) of Watson and Rashleigh.
1782: (Baker, p. 71), London banker Francis Baring takes over some supply of provisions on a commission basis by about October 1782 and Baring liked arrangements that could be made at Waterford and Limerick, when at the time for cattle, Cork was "the slaughter house of Ireland". Baring (Baker, p. 142) used about 22 merchants, 13 in Ireland and 9 in England, mostly from East Anglia and s/e England. Baring (Baker, p. 142), by November 1782 had contracted to victual 70,000 British troops using English and Irish merchants. Baring (Baker, p. 78) and with Thomas Farrer (difficult to trace) a London cornfactor and contractor a specialist in dry provisions) in 1783 under auspices of Shelburne Ministry undertook supply of all British troops abroad with a view to using his preferred agents at Cork, though he generally used the contractors and agents earlier used by the North administration. (Baker, p. 143), Baring used in Ireland, the firms Piercy and Waggets, Ferguson and Collon, Hugh Jameson and Church and Crawford. all of Cork. Also P. and J. Roche of Limerick and John Allan of Waterford.

1783

1783: (Baker, p. 188), John Trotter of Frith Street, Soho, was a supplier of bedding for hospitals during the American war. (John Trotter is difficult to trace.) (Baker, p. 34), William Fitzhugh was brother-in-law of John Purling MP and Simon Halliday has brother John Halliday MP (Baker, p. 35), William Baynes (difficult to trace) has brother-in-law John Roberts
(Baker, p. 55), the names arise, and so far, George Browne (difficult to find the correct individual with such a common name) and Edward Lewis (died about 1791, a son of Percival Lewis, both difficult to trace) appear in tandem.
(Baker, p. 57), Contractor names appearing are Henry Mason and Henry Blundell (not yet traced), their estates were not finalized till 1809.
(Baker, p. 66), Commissary-General at Cork is Robert Gordon (difficult to trace, probably from Scottish highlands, he married a daughter of General Cunninghame).
(Baker, p. 70), at end of Jan 1782, the navy board agent for transports at Cork was Lt. Harris (not yet traced).
Baker, pp. 80-81, names a few sub-contractors in England used by the top-line contractors eg, Palgraves and Henry Gooch & Cotton of Bungay in Suffolk.

On the naval aspects of the American War for the British side, see David Syrett, Shipping and the American War. London, 1970. (In July 1776 the Navy Board had 416 transports of 128,427 tons, most of it chartered). David Syrett, ‘Methodology of British amphibious operations during the Seven Years War and the American War’, Mariner’s Mirror, February 1978, Vol. 64., pp. 269-280.
David Syrett, The Royal Navy in American Waters, 1775-1783. Gower Publishing Co., Brookfield, Vermont, USA, Scolar Press, 1989. pp. 26ff, citing Orlando W. Stephenson, ‘The Supply of Gunpowder in 1776’, American Historical Review, January 1925, Vol. 30., pp. 271-281. and p. 41, in the first five months of 1776, British government, making strenuous efforts to find ships for government service, many tenders were advertised, delays set in, also re severe winter of 1775-1776, fitting of ships at Deptford was slowed, transports could not be armed due to regulations banning shipment of munitions by sea. Citing see also, A. T. Mahan, The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence. New York, 1969, reprint.

Military Contractors active during the American War of Independence

This website was relaunched on the Net on 4 July 2006 at:
www.merchantnetworks.com.au
E-mail the Webmaster: Dan
Byrnes